can you say "muffin"?

Bikers are often treated to fascinating slices of life that go whizzing by. Today i passed an adult leaning down to a child, saying "Would you get your fingers out of your mouth? Can you say 'muffin'?" His tone was...not loveless, but peremptory. The two sentences rolled into one another. They were the words of someone who has spoken such messages too many times, and hasn't slept enough this decade.
I'm sympathetic. Parenting, as our culture constructs it, is a life-sucking exercise at best. Unless you're rich, or a man who knows how to make a womyn do most of the work, parenting is a sucker's bet, and it's only profound socialization that allows anyone to think otherwise.
Not that i'm assuming most parents choose their path. I love the internet, for the avalanches of obscure statistics. Wanna know whether left-handed people have a lower sex drive? Me too! They must, else why would there be so few of them?? Yet the one stat that eludes me is how many people become parents through choice, as opposed to "oops"?
I've been alive for decades, and have uttered millions of words...yet have never said anything vaguely close to "Would you get your fingers out of your mouth? Can you say 'muffin'?" Everyone here turn to the person closest to you, and say those words. Say them like you mean it, and i dare you to not laugh. As i biked on, all i could do was keep repeating those words, amidst giggles and chuckles. It kept me entertained for a mile or two. But it made me think about parenthood, and how on some level it's akin to saying "I really have no idea what to do with my life, but i know i have to do something, and if i keep putting off doing something, people are going to start looking at me funny, so...i don't know, YES, let's make a baby! Oh god, that was a dumb idea..."
The child was a girl, and i felt great sympathy for her. Why can't our culture provide parents less worn-down? Subconsciously, she has to know when a parent is phoning it in. I so, so much wanted for her to respond "I got a muffin for ya, daddy-o. Blow it out your ear." The fact that she was a year or two away from any such language construct only made it funnier. I longed for her to BE that child, and even dreamed of who THAT child might be grown up...the kind of fearless, non-conformist, chop-busting womyn i've always dreamed would be a perfect complement for me.
Which brings me to astrology, for i know what THAT womyn would think of astrology, and i wonder whether there isn't a parallel between parenthood and astrology.
I have no shortage of disregard for tarot and the like...though perhaps not for the reason you assume. Yes, the brazenly unabashed endorsement of superstitious thinking ought make any evolved person cringe, but on a deeper level, our fascination with star signs or readings reveals a profound narcissism at work - it's all about me, tell me about Me, what about MEEEEEEE??? Y'know what, wentworth, maybe it's not all about you. Maybe just maybe you should pull your head out of your ass long enough to take in all the apocalyptic suffering of humyns and other animals on this rock so that you can figure out how you might help, rather than wonder about the dark-haired stranger who will soon make your life bearable.
I'm not unsympathetic. In this culture of greed and fear, we DO all live lives of varying unbearability. Sticking your head up your ass (or inside a bottle) is a perfectly sane response.
But to me, the desire for horoscopes/readings is akin to rolling belly-up and saying "I have no idea what to do about any of this...kill me now, or let magic take me awayyyy..." You might as well curl up on the couch with reality TV, Cosmo, and a heroin needle. The world needs you, but you've checked out with no forwarding address. The copernican revolution was five centuries ago, but most of us still haven't caught up to the notion that our planet (and by extension, ourselves) are NOT the center of the universe.
Can you say "muffin"?