My Little Fertility Promoter

As birth rates fall across Western Europe, giving rise to fears of a pension crisis, one Canadian baby is doing all she can to reverse the trend in Germany.

The scene is a red commuter train between the sleepy town where we live and the financial center of Frankfurt am Main. It’s shortly past 7 a.m. and the morning rush is just beginning to get underway. The crowd is composed of career-oriented bankers, support workers who have to get to the office before their bosses, and women like me: Working women with babies whose only affordable childcare option is distant from both home base and the office.

The train pulls up to the platform, the doors slide open and my little girl turns on the charm. A copy of my very own dimple twinkles in her soft flesh, her grin reveals all four of her teeth and she greets the seated passengers with an enthusiastic “Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!” that breaks everyone out of their pre-coffee stupor.

“Ah, it’s the baby,” a few of the passengers murmur among themselves in German. We are, after all, regulars on the train. I look around the car quickly for an empty seat. If we have been lucky, the car that stopped in front of us on the platform had a decal of a bicycle and a pram, indicating that it has room for our wheels. If we’ve been unlucky, I have to take the baby out of the stroller, fold it and balance both baby and equipment down the aisle. The train doesn’t wait long enough at the platform to board a car with a decal farther down.

No one notices a frazzled, overly-tired mother. My daughter is too busy waving and smiling at each person we pass as I struggle down the aisle. This eclipse, too, is part of her plan. I don’t know exactly who she is working for, but my daughter, I am convinced, is a fertility promoter.

Once we find a seat, she squeals with delight at the person beside us. This outburst, is easy to translate: “I am happy to see you!”

She then settles in to a game of peek-a-boo or spot-the-shiny-objects with her seat mate.

“Such a friendly baby,” older men and women have exclaimed into the air. “She doesn’t mind being out so early at all!” they say.

Young(ish) men dressed in pinstripes turn down a corner of their newspapers to see what all the fuss is about and turn back to their reading with a shrug. But they, of course, are not the intended audience of this demonstration. No, across the aisle are young(ish) and well-groomed women with briefcases and expensive scarves. They watch her, rapt with attention. The thoughts “perhaps” and “maybe it is time to start thinking…” are almost audible in the early morning railway carriage into the city.

Just when she has them where she wants them, all can still go wrong for the fertility promoter. Another baby has boarded the car. My girl raises a chubby little fist in greeting and the other baby calls out in recognition. Today, their work is safe. The secret signs have been exchanged and received. The other baby stays at the opposite end of the car, working his own territory.

It does not always go so smoothly. When seated in the same vicinity, two babies are for more interested in staring at and interacting with each other. While equally as charming to observe for some, it requires the mothers to also interact, revealing a culture of stress and self-neglect to eavesdroppers.

Three babies and their buggies in one carriage is an absolute disaster. “These mothers think they can just take over the entire train,” is the most common sentiment. And a sleep-deprived, overly rushed woman is most likely to snap back when confronted about the amount of space her buggy is taking up.

Today, though, both potential pitfalls have been avoided. She has completely enthralled a member of the target audience. A young woman, shortly out of university, cannot contain her enthusiasm.

“She’s go good! And so cute! I wish my cell phone had a camera so that I could take her picture to show my mother. She’s just the ideal baby. Just the kind I want to have some day.”

My daughter accepts her accolades and settles back into her stroller with satisfaction. As we approach our destination she calls out “Tao, tao!” and waves in farewell as we exit the train and head to day care. It’s been a successful beginning to another day’s work for my little fertility promoter.