It is said that the ancient poets “wrote in the language they imbibed with their mother’s milk.”
If that is the case, my daughter is going to write some dirty, filthy stuff one day.
For the past five months, I have been pumping during the workday to keep my daughter supplied with what is affectionately referred to in my house as “booby juice.” To pass the time while I pump – and to take my mind off the fact that I am sitting in a supply closet (the only room in the office with an opaque door that locks) – I listen to standup comedians.
Not, like, Seinfeld and Cosby standup comedians. I listen to Sarah Silverman, Patton Oswalt and Louis C.K. – comedians with brilliant cadences, demented outlooks on life and a very real, very pronounced affection for four-letter words.
My dirty comic pumping habit began five months ago, when I went back to work. Because I dreaded the whole idea of pumping, I decided to “reward” myself by making a little “Patton Oswalt” station on the Internet-based personalized radio service Pandora. I figured it would help me get through the awfulness.
And, indeed, it did. But it also did something else: It increased my milk supply.
At first I figured it was a fluke. But soon there was no denying it: Something about a Greg Giraldo joke got my mammary glands going, and whenever I pumped to anything other than standup, my output was much lower.
This was true whether I was listening to nothing, watching TV, listening to music or talking on the phone. Apparently nothing beats the milk-producing power of broken people sharing their skewed outlook on our unjust world.
I found the formula so flawless that I even proposed it to a friend who said she was having trouble pumping. She looked at me like I was crazy. Milk thistle, she was expecting. Dark beer, even. But how is a five-minute Amy Schumer set about sexual misadventures supposed to help? This is not in any of the parenting books.
I am not sure what effect, if any, this will have on my girl. The food a woman consumes supposedly affects the taste of her milk, but what about the media she consumes? Will my daughter have a mouth like
Eddie Murphy?
I kind of hope so.
A lot of the comedians I listen to have children of their own and talk more honestly than they should about how lousy they are as parents or how horrible toddlers can be. I wish I could print any of it here, but the fact that I can’t tells you just how raw and funny they are.
I know it is silly, but I have to imagine that as Sivan guzzles her bottle, she gulps this stuff down, too. I hope that the smile she wears when she’s finished eating means more than that she’s just milk drunk. I hope it means she feels sated and tired and happy – the way we all feel after a really good laugh.
