For awhile there was a Life Skills class at the local high school. Students took turns taking care of a plastic baby that needed diapers, feeding, burping and constant supervision. Kids had to arrange babysitters if they could not take the doll with them to a sports event. It was good practice for the real thing, even though there is a discrete
difference between the loyalty a sixteen year old girl feels for an inanimate dummy and the devotion of a real live mother toward the infant that grew under her heart. Teenagers had a chance to step into responsibility if only with one toe. I heard from a teacher that the prop cost a thousand dollars, which is a climb from a Cabbage Patch or even an American Girl. But they do stop crying when you pick them up.
One day I went to take something to my son and saw a group of
girls gathered around the baby. The novelty had not yet worn off and they all chatted about how cute she was. I smiled, having weathered twenty years of having a baby under two. Three weeks of pseudo childcare. How quaint. But hey you gotta start somewhere. I find it believable that when a dewey newborn actually lands on her chest all that practice will come in handy.
I have a friend who is sticking with her marriage. I say marriage more than her husband
because she is not overly committed to him as much as the promise she made in a white dress with her mother crying in the front pew. While she meant it at the time things have gone from color to black and white as the distance between them widens. But she is staying.
Sometimes I think we are all just in a Marriage Skills Class. We get to practice listening, compromise, washing dishes you did not dirty, and putting the needs of another person before your own. We may not
be as devoted to our spouse as we expected we would be, but that was before we knew how annoying they were.
What would the alternative be? Skip the practice and pretend we are ready for a golden anniversary celebrating a relationship that has no rough edges left? You can buy the cake and balloons but there is no store that sells a softened heart.
I find it believable that a woman who stuck with her covenant in a marriage that felt no
more alive than a doll could wake up in heaven to find herself with a real live partner in her arms.
