That’s the other thing. Everybody who has kids is immediately your best friend. I knew this abstractly before, but it’s very real now. They all beam at you with this cult-like good will. “We’re so glad you’ve joined us! It was utter hell when they were small, and it was the best thing I ever did.”
Mostly, your baby is the jumping off point for them to talk about their own little person that they love so much. It makes me feel better about the world, somehow, meeting all these grown-ups – cab drivers, doctors, sales clerks, artists, whoever – who suddenly shed their workday roles, and emerge as their real secret identity – Dad, or Mom, or Grandma. Dads actually seem to be the most vocal so far.
It kinda feels like the real world is all made up only of children and their adult attendants who create these elaborate economic structures to support them, coming home for a few stolen hours in the evening to admire the little child kings and queens, before going out the next morning to do it all again.
