The New One by Mike Birbiglia

The last thing we do in my graduate script analysis class is watch Mike Birbiglia's My Girlfriend's Boyfriend. Birbiglia is ostensibly a stand-up comedian, but like lots of comics today, he more resembles a theatre artist than anything. His shows, including Girlfriend's Boyfriend resemble intricately structured stories peppered with some comedian-ish elements (impromptu audience interaction, etc.). They're marvels of dramaturgy, delivery, staging, and even design. I'm a big fan. (Someday I'll teach a class where I pair Hannah Gadsby's Nanette with Birbiglia's Thank God for Jokes.)

I was thrilled, then, to see Birbiglia's newest piece, The New One, on Netflix this last weekend with my sister. The show has all the standard Birbiglia features--great writing, charm, self-deprecation, deep pessimism mixed with hopeful pragmatism.

But in the opening credits, my sister (more perceptive as always than I) groaned, "Oh, I hope it's not about him having a baby."

Birbiglia has been open about his and his wife's plans not to have kids. My sister and I both made similar plans. As soon as she said it, though, I saw it: yep. This is going to be the "Here's how I had a kid" one. The kid is "the new one."

And sure enough, that's the story. Birbiglia does his best to make the piece as meta as possible, devoting half the show to his multiple reasons for not wanting a kid. (He has seven. I agree with all of them.) Then he and his wife have a kid, which in Birbiglia's narrative finds him alienated, literally and figuratively, from the "we" that used to be his relationship with his wife.

Birbiglia, as he's performed about before, has a sleep disorder that causes him to act out his dreams. He once jumped through a plate-glass window on the third story of a hotel, injuring himself badly in the process. He now sleeps in a cocoon of a tight sleeping bag and mittens. With a baby, on doctor's orders, he also now quarantines himself (and his cat) in a separate bedroom locked from the inside in a way his sleeping self could not circumvent.

On a more profound level, though, Birbiglia finds that the closeness he and his wife shared simply pales in comparison to his wife's relationship to their daughter Oona. They are as close as two beings can be, intimate in a way that Birbiglia recognizes he can never be with anyone, including his wife and daughter. (It also sounds like Birbiglia had relinquished much of the parenting duties to his wife, which of course fuels quite a bit of tension between the two of them.) In an uncomfortable moment of realization, Birbiglia discovers he can see why some fathers leave their wives and kids.

He does not.

In the end, he concludes that, unlike what his wife had promised, the "new one" had produced irrevocable change in his life. They'll never go back. But, as his many other friends had promised him, he finds it worthwhile.

I was sad, seeing it.

I once wanted kids, wanted them badly. I wanted the huge change, the permanent reset of priorities that children bring. For a number of reasons I chose not to pursue that path (a path that would have been extremely hard due to gayness. It's bizarre that some heterosexuals can have kids by accident.).

I have a lot of guilt--and sometimes regret--about that choice. Above all, I have the FOMO sense of having skipped a part of the human life script that everyone else sees a mandatory. I've at best missed out on something good; at worst I've abandoned my duty as a human to perpetuate the species.

Of course, I now also harbor real doubts about the wisdom of perpetuating the species. The reasons Birbiglia gives for not having kids are, in my view, spot-on. Understand: I'm committed to the right of humans to decide for themselves if, when, and how to reproduce. I'm likewise committed to the invaluable worth of all humans born. But, if you were to ask me, I'd say that humans could stand to have fewer children overall. It'd be great if we could no longer have kids "by accident" (except if the parents-to-be are in that "we're wanting more kids but not actively trying" state where pregnancy would be welcome). I'd like every child born to be a child that's wanted and planned for and provided for.

I recognize I'm in the minority here. I recognize that my not having children leaves me in a tight spot in old age. So much of our elder care system assumes children and grandchildren. Those without any find things even more difficult than usual.

So it felt a little sad, like we've lost one, to see Birbiglia giving in to the life narrative he had so resisted. It's his business, of course, and I wish him and his family all good things. And his show is good.

But still: sigh.