Sure, Blame The Baby
College & University, Family & Kids, Grandparents, Jerk, Non-Dialogue, UK, Wales | Related | April 19, 2022
I’m kind of a pet peeve for Grandpa. He doesn’t like me. Like, at all.
You’d think it’s because I was born out of wedlock, but no. It’s because he insists that if it weren’t for my birth, Dad could have done way better in his A-levels and not have gone to what he calls a “garbage university”.
Back when they were teenagers in boarding school, Dad and Mom accidentally got pregnant with me. Mom didn’t find out she was pregnant until literally three weeks before my birthday. I’ve seen the photos, and yes, Mom really didn’t look like she was pregnant. Sure, she put on a bit of weight, but I was born in spring. It just looked like the regular Christmas and New Year weight gain.
As for the other symptoms — morning sickness, mood swings, and the like — both my parents were studying for their A-levels. They were way too stressed out to realise.
And thus, Mom gave birth to me, when she and Dad were both international students half a world away from home and their families — a pair of clueless nineteen-year-olds saddled with a newborn daughter to raise less than 100 days before the A-levels.
They both achieved straight As and got their courses of choice: medicine for Dad, computer science for Mom.
Both of them also raised me rather successfully (though not without their fair share of bumbling mishaps) while being full-time students in a foreign country three continents away from home.
Also, that “garbage university” they both went to? Birmingham University.
And Grandpa still claims that Dad could have done better if he “hadn’t wasted time looking after a kid.”
I swear, there just isn’t pleasing some people.
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