Ask Moylen Green, your agony Ent, for the latest hints and tips on ANYTHING YOU CAN THINK OF.

Rod M, sometimes manager and never architect, has asked me the following:

“When is it ok to talk about your kids to friends without kids?”

Having a child triggers a well known mechanism known as The Baby Alien Switch. When someone has a child, their brain and persona is removed (the method of removal has yet to be studied) and replaced with an alien that inhabits their body. The alien seems to be them – it has their body, after all, but all it does is think and talk about their offspring.

It’s usual for this to last about 6 months to a year, and then the ownership of the body tends to start to switch back, at least sometimes. In some unfortunate cases, it doesn’t occur readily and the new body is left obsessed with and only ever willing to converse about their offspring for anything up to 18 years; this is co-incidentally about the time the offspring is eligible for a driver’s license.

A body that has been possessed by a Baby Alien will remain distracted and apt to return to Alien mode for years, on and off. Usually this phase lasts until the youngest child the body has produced is able to make it’s own breakfast. However, it is possible for some people to remain baby aliens for ever if they have enough children. These bodies can also switch over into Grandparent-Alien mode as soon as their offspring breed. In the case of some of the outer suburbs, this can be any where as early as 14 years after their initial possession.

Friends of Baby Aliens who have not bred and been replaced, can choose to do two things. Allow the friendship to lapse as the Baby Aliens seek comfort in groups of their own kind, or periodically test to see if the possession has lapsed and the Aliens have return to the mothership for recharging.

This second type of friendship my result in a situation known as “Baby Bribes”, where the unencumbered and possession-free visit the Baby Alien household and request food or tea, as fair trade for their company. It is possible for the non baby Aliens to achieve many free meals this way if they are willing to risk having to watch a baby be bathed and they are amenable to the frequent absences of the Alien to perform various rituals such as ‘The Bedtime Story’. It is recommended the Non-Alien take a book or have their phone charged for such times.

For those Possessed (or recently departed) by the Baby Alien, they need to understand that any non-Alien willing to stick around is a true friend and therefore suitable for them to discuss their issues with, be it their babies, or children.