Hey did you hear?  Mark Zuckerberg and his wife HAD A BABY!  In fact, they were so thrilled with the birth of their baby that they are donating a zillion-trillion dollars to charities for the rest of their lives. They wrote a 490 page letter explaining their reasoning. It’s linked here but if you don’t have a good hour and a half to get through it, I’ll summarize:

“We had a baby and we are using our zillion-trillion dollars to make life better for this baby, because the world the rest of you have created is a stink hole.”

Here’s how I imagine this conversation went:

Z: Honey, we are having a baby!  I’m pretty sure we’re the first people to attempt this!

Z’s Wife:  I know, right??

Z:  How can we protect her from the stinky world we live in?  I’m TRYING my butt off over here with the whole invention of FACEBOOK. I mean, there’s no racism on my site. Or sexism.  Or drugs. Or homophobia!!  How can we get the world to be more like Facebook??

Z’s Wife:  You better not spend all of our money, Mark.  Daycare is EXPENSIVE.

Z: Okay. We’ll save 89 billion by keeping one Facebook share of our own – and we’ll just use the zillion-trillion left and we can donate it OVER OUR ENTIRE LIFETIME!  That way we can donate just a little bit at a time but it looks like we’re donating it all right now!

Z’s Wife: Sounds great, Mark dear.  Hey, can you call the Ambu-limo?? The first baby ever is about to be born!

What’s my problem?  I’m being such a hater over this.  I think because the announcement, the pictures, the “donating over our lifetime” thing – it all just screamed pretentiousness and disconnection. 

I know people right now who have just had babies and work two jobs AND volunteer.  I know people who have had babies and they nurse sick people back to health.  I know people who have adopted babies (side note: adoption is the same to me as biological babies. A poopy diaper is gross whether you build the kid or someone else did) and took in abused animals to give them better lives. 

But you know what? Those people didn’t announce it with a 490 page letter. They didn’t tell me that the reason they have to do good things is because the world is a yucky place for THEIR BABY.  They got a beautiful little gift of a baby, cherished it privately and then went on their way to being wonderful, contributing members of society.  They may not have a trillion-zillion dollars to donate over their lifetime but I bet their contributions and the wonderful adults that they are raising will make a difference.

So to be gracious and less grouchy – I say congrats to Zuckerberg, his wife and their new daughter - who has the same name as my one of my sons - Max.  Good luck with late nights. Enjoy warm snuggles and toothless smiles.

And remember, you’re not on an island all by yourselves anymore.  You’ve just become a member of a very exclusive club called, The Rest of Us.  On behalf of The Rest of Us, I welcome you! 

And if you can shut your trap we’ll let you stay.