babies-3
Original: babies-3 on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Child: Where do babies come from?
Panel 2:
Mother: When a mommy and daddy love each other...
Panel 3:
Mother: ...and have completed their education and begun earning a substantial, reliable income...
Panel 4:
Mother: ...and a large enough house in a good neighborhood near a good public school...
Panel 5:
Mother: ...and they ideally have saved some money in retirement savings and a college fund, and an emergency fund...
Panel 6:
Mother: ...and they should be young enough that having children is safe for both mother and child, yet old enough that they know who they are and have led a life of independence and travel, as a couple...
Panel 7:
Mother: And... and... um...
Panel 8:
Child: Where do babies come from?
(Final panel: a man lies in bed on his back, the child standing beside the bed.)
Votey:
Mother (thought/speech): I thought for sure it was sex.
(She has a defeated, blank expression with sweat drops.)
Child: Where do babies come from?
Panel 2:
Mother: When a mommy and daddy love each other...
Panel 3:
Mother: ...and have completed their education and begun earning a substantial, reliable income...
Panel 4:
Mother: ...and a large enough house in a good neighborhood near a good public school...
Panel 5:
Mother: ...and they ideally have saved some money in retirement savings and a college fund, and an emergency fund...
Panel 6:
Mother: ...and they should be young enough that having children is safe for both mother and child, yet old enough that they know who they are and have led a life of independence and travel, as a couple...
Panel 7:
Mother: And... and... um...
Panel 8:
Child: Where do babies come from?
(Final panel: a man lies in bed on his back, the child standing beside the bed.)
Votey:
Mother (thought/speech): I thought for sure it was sex.
(She has a defeated, blank expression with sweat drops.)
Alt text
An eight-panel SMBC comic. A red-haired child asks her mother, "Where do babies come from?" The mother, in a black dress, launches into an increasingly elaborate answer over several panels: babies come when a mommy and daddy love each other, have completed their education and a substantial reliable income, a large enough house in a good neighborhood near a good public school, retirement savings plus a college fund plus an emergency fund, and are young enough that childbirth is safe yet old enough to have led an independent life of travel as a couple. By the seventh panel she trails off, stammering "And... and... um..." In the final panel the child repeats, "Where do babies come from?" while a man lies flat on his back in bed beside the child, looking checked out. Votey: a close-up of the mother's defeated, blank, sweating face as she thinks, "I thought for sure it was sex." The joke: she over-engineered the prerequisites for having a baby into an impossible checklist and forgot the actual biological answer.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.