Mommy problems

It’s well past the end of Freshers’ Week, and I have come to a slow but painful realisation: I have no academic children. Funnily enough, I have been mistaken for a fresher multiple times, and I have a slight suspicion that those who did so were attempting to adopt me—I can’t help that I’m slightly socially awkward, and, thanks to my Asian genes, deceptively youthful.

This is what I imagine a mid-life crisis to feel like: all my friends have paired off into academic couples, not to mention some having already adopted up to seven kids. With both desperation and determination, I decided that I would ask every single fresher who came up to my stall at the Freshers’ Fayre if they had been adopted yet. As the day progressed, I felt my optimism die away and the end of the day found myself childless. Why was it so hard for me, in my third year, to find an orphan-Fresher? Aren’t Freshers supposed to be desperate?

I now realise my mistake. While I was procrastinating the hunt for kids and naïvely thinking there would be children left for me, the time for adopting had passed. Though, perhaps there are adoptable freshers reading this article…

For my fellow third years who still have yet to find academic children, don’t fret—it’s dawned on me that we can steal. This is probably not the most kosher way to find kids, but if you ask around, many freshers still have ‘tentative’ parents. By poaching and monopolising, you are probably saving them from an unhappy relationship with parents drunkenly chosen in the Union on a Friday night. And if you are an adoptable fresher reading this: don’t be afraid to approach third years! It makes life easier for us, you know.

I now have five children, three of which are stolen. And now I am going to publish this anonymously, because I don’t want to scare any of them off.

One more thing: if all fails, lure them with baked goods. 

Photo ©Anna Gudnason