The Meaning of Giving Life, or Why We Screw in Summer

Nine months before Memorial Day weekend

Nine months before Memorial Day weekend

So JP’s birthday is tomorrow, which is not what this post is about. This post about sex, late-summer early-fall sex, the kind of sex that results in children born … on Memorial Day weekend. Am I imagining this, or are half of the children that I know having birthdays coming up this weekend or week?

Is life that simple to understand? You go to the beach with your Other (you judge the significance), eat lobster, sip gin-and-tonics, and whammo! Nine months later it’s crotchfruit time.

Or is it even simpler than that? After Memorial Day, summer peak vacation pricing starts. Does everyone just schedule their schtupping so they can get a break on a time share?

I report. You decide how seriously to take it.

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About Theodore

Theodore Ross is an editor of Harper’s Magazine. His writing has appeared in Harper’s, Saveur, Tin House, the Mississippi Review, and (of course), the Vietnam News. He grew up in New York City by way of Gulfport, MS, and as a teen played the evil Nazi, Toht, in Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation. He lives with his son, J.P. in Brooklyn, and is currently working on a book about Crypto-Jews.

5 thoughts on “The Meaning of Giving Life, or Why We Screw in Summer

  1. This is pretty true as my daughter’s beginnings can be traced back to memorial day weekend. 🙂 A lot of my friends kids also have birthdays in Feb and I think it is because of the first “Summer Holiday”.

  2. Scientific studies back up your findings completely. I don’t remember which studies… or where they were published… or what exactly the numbers were… but they’re definitely out there.

  3. I believe Ted wrote this without knowing that I, his DW colleague, have a birthday tomorrow.

  4. In a similar vein, there was a Christmas party schtup that resulted in our August baby. I’d bet you’d be able to find a bunch of August an Memorial babies out there.

  5. Again, I am cold. I wanted my babies to come in the first few months of the year so … there were months I would go for it and (many) months I would not. One exception, my husband is a second half of the year baby himself, so I allowed him one September kid. But if she came any later, I was going to lie and tell people she wasn’t born till the next January. Or something. I just want that edge.

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