A few years ago, I subbed in a bowling league where one of my teammates turned out to be a father of young triplets. When I found out, my reflexive curiosity led me to ask some version of the question, “Were they natural?” I may have tried to phrase it a little less bluntly, but the question was the same. My very friendly teammate answered politely and directly (no, they had “help”), and my curiosity was satisfied without realizing at the time what a personal or awkward question I had just asked. Now that I’m a father of twins and encounter the same question or variations on it frequently, I cringe that I ever asked it, and wish I could go back and apologize to that guy.
Read the rest of this entry »
