Surrender, Dorothy

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To C Or Not to C

On Tuesday night, my class got into a post-break discussion of labor.  The representative students were almost all female, and two of the students have four children.  One of my students is seven months pregnant.  Somehow we started talking about Britney Spears and her non-necessary but scheduled C-section.  I mentioned a discussion I'd heard on the radio about the new trend in scheduling births even for those women not requiring a C-section for medical reasons.  I quickly regretted the decision to mention it.

The pregnant woman, who earlier during a group project had approached me on the subject of her son's constipation, started talking about how happy she'd been to have a C-section with her first son.  Another student, who has a three-year-old, launched into her horror story of twenty hours of pushing.  I tried to bring the conversation back around to grammar.

Me:  "Okay, poor K. (one of the lone men, and the only heterosexual man in the room) looks like he's about to jump out the window.  Let's talk about grammar."

K:  "No, I'm down with the C-sections."

Me:  "Really?  Why?"

K:  "No pushing, no 'fuck you,' just two beautiful babies."

Well, there you go.