Oh, I get the whole
”
out with the old and in with the new
”
thing. It makes sense to leave the old year behind and start
fresh with a new year.
Oh, I get the whole “out with the old and in with the new” thing. It makes sense to leave the old year behind and start fresh with a new year. And I even understand the symbolism of Old Father Time retiring when the year is over. Of course, I don’t understand “Auld Lang Syne,” but unless you are some kilt wearing guy in the Highlands of Scotland, you probably don’t either.
But what I really don’t get is the baby thing.
According to the handy-dandy Internet, the custom of using a baby as a symbol of the New Year started with the Greeks. They put babies in baskets to symbolize the rebirth of Dionysus, the god of wine and revelry.
I have many problems with this. First, didn’t ancient Greece have any drinking laws? In today’s world, you are singled out if you don’t breastfeed – what would people say if you allowed your 3-month old to suck a bottle full of Cabernet instead of soy formula?
Then there’s that whole revelry thing. I mean, please. Everyone on the planet knows that when you have a child, the god of wine and revelry leaves your house and moves in with the couple down the street that have two incomes, no children, lots of expensive, breakable objects and, of course, many, many uncovered electrical sockets.
Even if Dionysus were to come to a child-filled house to revel – he’d find nobody to revel with. This is because it’s hard to revel on no sleep. Oh yeah, it was fun to revel the nights away in college. But fast-forward several years and a few kids later and the revelry is just gone. Poof. Out the door and it isn’t coming back until the kids are practicing revelry at some snooty college back east that you forgot to save for.
And even then, it isn’t the same. I mean it’s one thing to revel all night long and get up the next morning, hangover-free, to cram for midterms. Revelry after the kids are gone requires an intense recovery period that can last up to three months, depending on how good a party it was. And New Year’s Eve parties are usually the rowdiest revelries of all.
And even if the ancient Greeks had much better hangover cures than I do – what about babysitters? Did they actually have teenage girls willing to watch their children for approximately twenty drachmas an hour? I doubt it. Because every parent is aware of the Diminishing Babysitter Theory developed by parents at MIT.
Basically, DBT is a theory that says that before you have children, there will be approximately 17.3 teenage girls bugging you to have kids so they can earn extra money babysitting. Once your first child is born, the number of teenage girls actually willing to baby-sit drops by two thirds.
By your second child, there is one teenage girl left on the entire street and every family tries to bribe her to baby-sit. The family that finally gets her is the one at the end of the street who use what remains of their savings to buy her a Corvette. And even then, that family cannot convince the babysitter to sit on New Year’s Eve. That’s because the babysitter is out cruising with her pals in the brand-new Corvette while you are stuck at home, drinking sparkling apple cider and trying to get French fry stains out of your 10-year old minivan.
And if the DBT and your long-gone days of revelry aren’t enough to convince you that a baby is not the best symbol of a new year, consider the baby’s outfit. I mean, come on. I’m a mom. And I’ve dressed Junior up in some pretty dorky outfits. When he was little, I was quite fond of lambs and giraffes. And sometimes bunnies. But I never put him in a top hat. It’s just cruel.
So I still don’t get the whole New Year’s Eve baby thing. But I did decide to revel just a little this past New Year’s Eve. I set all the clocks ahead three hours. And at nine o’clock, we all danced around the house like idiots, blowing noisemakers and toasting each other with sparkling apple cider.
Maybe we’ve figured out New Year’s Eve after all. We had fun – and we didn’t even have to buy the babysitter a new car. She’ll just have to make do with last year’s model.
Laurie Sontag is a Gilroy stay at home mom who wishes parenthood had come with a how-to guide. She can be reached at
am************@ya***.com
.
