If You Were Producer Ted and I Were Your Wife

Author: Megan Licious | |

I listen to the same afternoon radio show every day. One of the personalities, and also the producer of the show, is Ted, also wittingly known as “Producer Ted.” Producer Ted is a soon-to-be father, and one day while interviewing a celebrity who was also a father, the topic of spouses came up. When asked how their wives enjoyed being mothers, Ted said something to the effect of:

“Do you remember those girls in Elementary school who were so stoked about being mothers and all they wanted was seven kids? Well those girls are the girls that actually turn out to be the horrible mothers. My wife never really, really wanted kids, so when we fell in love and married and decided to have children, she was so much better at it.”

Hold the phone.

Dear Producer Ted,
How well does this apply to other aspirations in life? See, here’s the thing buddy. I’ve always known I should pursue a career in English. And then I got the dreadful feeling, while I was sitting in the Language class I took my junior year, that I was supposed to be a teacher. I have no choice really. 26% of me is too scared of being the servant who buried his first, most obvious talent. Luckily, a whopping 55% of me knows deep down that my first love always will be English, and that love conquers all (yes, my deep down still thinks in romantic clichés; I’m sure college with cure me of that). Only with the total 81% (the other 19%? 12% of me wants to major in history, and 7% in biology) am I able to convince myself that even though I want to crawl into the fetal position whenever I imagine thirty pairs of eyes watching me as I stand in front of the classroom in my Massimo pumps, it’s what I really want—and need—to do.

So, if you were Producer Ted and I was your pregnant wife, I would probably correct you offhandedly during dinner as I ate the caramel apple turnover my cravings forced you to run out and get me while you were in the middle of the Chinese takeout you brought home with you after work: “Maybe it seems that way because it came as an unexpected blessing sent with a lot of help.”