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From: wetcw@pyuxa.UUCP (T C Wheeler)
Newsgroups: net.jokes.d
Subject: Re: Natural Childbirth by Dave Barry
Message-ID: <803@pyuxa.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 14-Jun-84 09:18:28 EDT
Article-I.D.: pyuxa.803
Posted: Thu Jun 14 09:18:28 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 15-Jun-84 00:41:06 EDT
References: <925@eosp1.UUCP>
Organization: Bell Communications Research, Piscataway N.J.
Lines: 31

Good Grief, Tobias, the article was not meant to be serious.
I thought the story was humorous in that Barry was just poking fun
at one of lifes little episodes.  I am sure that he was just as
awe struck and humbled as I felt when my three were born.  The story
did not seem in any way a put-down of natural childbirth.  It was
just one humorists story, told in a light funny vein.  There are
many many little stories like this in our media.  They are just
there to provide a smile or two.  Read Erma Bombeck sometime.
Here is a lady who does exactly the same thing, poking fun at
lifes serious moments.  And, they DID, at one time dope the
mother to the limit during birth.  They still do in many
hospitals.  I thought Dave Barry's description of the whole
process hit the nail on the head in some instances.  For
instance, the classes that he attended were not unlike those
my wife and I went to.  We would go home afterwards and howl
with laughter at some of the antics of the others.  ( I suppose
they did the same with our antics.)  We all seem to remember
the funny things that happen to us much better than the serious
or not-so-funny things.  I don't ever remember discussing
the time my daughter broke her arm or my son had to spend a
week in the hospital with respritory problems.  I have talked
the ear off people telling them about the time my son pulled
a 12 pound bluefish out of the surf by putting the pole over his 
shoulder and marching up the beach when he was 7 years old.
We all have to try to take the edge off the serious mode
once in awhile or else we will end up as basket cases in the
funny farm.  The story appeared in net.jokes, so I was prepared
to be amused.  If it had appeared in net.med or net.something-else-
serious, I might not have been as amused.
T. C. Wheeler