“Don’t even ask.” Photo: George ArriolaThe ever-entertaining Tina Fey has a piece in the latest New Yorker on my designated topic of the week: whether to have more than one kid.
“The second-worst question you can ask a woman is: ‘Are you going to have more kids?'” Fey writes. (The first-worst question: “How do you juggle it all?” which is code for “You’re screwing it all up, aren’t you?”)
“Are you going to have another one?” asks the owner of her local toy store. “You want more kids?” asks a fellow actor on 30 Rock. “You should have another one” is the unsolicited advice from her ear-nose-and-throat doctor.
All this rude probing fuels Fey’s indecision:
I debate the second-baby issue when I can’t sleep. “Should I? No. I want to. I can’t. I must. Of course not. I should try immediately.” …
[W]hat if [my one kid] turns on me? I am pretty hard to like. I need a backup. …
[But having another kid would mean] derailing the TV show where two hundred people depend on me for their income.
Plus, even with just the one kid, Fey’s already got stress-induced canker sores.
As Fey tries to figure out whether her pro column is longer than her con column, let me suggest one more consideration: the environment. Having one less kid is likely the most significant contribution she could make to a cleaner, greener world. Actually, in Fey’s case, the second most significant; her role in keeping Sarah Palin away from the White House surely had greater green effect than anything you or I will ever do. Stick with a one-kid family, keep up the Palin shtick through 2012, and she could rival Al Gore for the most influential enviro of the early 21st century.
So what do you say, Tina? One is more fun!
[UPDATE, 12 Apr 2011: Tina is going for No. 2 after all. In fact, she was already preggers when her New Yorker piece was published and when this post went up, though she hadn’t yet revealed that publicly. So much for The New Yorker‘s vaunted fact-checking process. Congrats and good luck, Tina!]
Read more about the green case for having one kid.
