Duxford Girl

I'm probably not the first person to theorize about this but after weeks of watching birth videos and stories I'm starting to wonder if alien abduction 'victims' are actually people who've stopped repressing memories of birth. I was watching a C-Section the other night and, after the kid's head popped out like a Jack-in-the-Box, you could see the confusion on the baby's face. “What the...where am I?” Then the doctor yanked her out and she yelled. Understandably, can you imagine the horror of that first bright light and the shock of the cold? I don't even like taking my sleeping mask off and tossing the covers away in the morning. Then a nurse dumped her on a table and started to none-too-gently towel her off. The baby was even less impressed. Following that, there was goop applied and things suctioned and all sorts of bending and checking of the kid.

It's a good thing that we repress all that. I don't even want to think about the trip down the birth canal. Of course there's a whole load of new-age stuff designed to lessen the trauma of birth on the little tykes. I kind of have to think though, isn't the trauma of birth of what prepares us for the rest of life? It's a great metaphor. A person gets comfortable and warm in a routine and then blamo! A lay-off; the end of a relationship; washing out of school; moving houses, cities, countries: suddenly you find yourself in the bright light and the cold again. It's a great way to start life because everybody is going to have to do it again and again.

Just for fun though, I think I might get Evil Scientist to hold up a picture of a wookie so it's the first thing Junior sees when he makes his appearance. It should make for some interesting family therapy sessions.