Alicia Colon Sings Her Songs of Love, Fecundity
So much to enjoy in the most recent Alicia Colon column (particularly the description of ludicrous polemicist Mark Steyn as "a handsome male Cassandra preaching to deaf European ears"). But it's the poetry of this passage that really got to us:
By the time I was pregnant with my third child, I was getting nasty looks whenever I walked to First Avenue from my Waterside apartment with a swollen belly and my two sons in a double stroller. I'm sure many strangers were under the mistaken impression that their tax dollars were funding our existence and resented my obvious fecundity.
How different I felt when we moved to Staten Island. Twin and triple strollers were a common sight at the mall and in Costco. Most Island restaurants are geared toward babies and large families. Playgrounds are abundant, and child-proofed. We have a huge carousel in Willowbrook Park and springtime sees Silver and Clove Lake parks teeming with babies and toddlers. Staten Island is the fastest-growing county in the state because growing families are finding the welcome mat is out for them.
My children are all adults now, and I'm awaiting my sixth grandchild. I probably could have used a nanny when mine were all young and driving me bonkers.
So that's how it happened. We need to get our scientists working on time travel now, so we can send a nanny back to the sixties and save us all a lot of aggravation.
