Goldie had no clue that four months could pass so quickly.

It felt like only yesterday that she'd held her child in her arms for the first time, a moment which held a considerable amount of weight in her mind owing to the circumstances of her daughter's conception. A moment which Goldie thought would never happen had been made possible through modern science, and for that she would always be greatful.

As previously agreed, she and her husband Argyle had decided to name her Sarah. Safe to say, the last few months had seen them have to adapt very quickly to the circumstances of being new parents.

Obviously, Goldie had been on maternity leave, but Argyle had also been asked to take this new concept called paternity leave. He was somewhat confused at first by the concept, given, as he had pointed out, he wasn't the one who had given birth, but had been more than happy to take such leave as it helped him split the childcare workload with his wife.

And boy had they had their work cut out for them.

To put it politely, Sarah had been a very noisy baby. Goldie had lost track of the sleepless nights to go and comfort her daughter, but felt if she didn't she'd be a bad parent. She was certain that things would get better- after all, she'd faced challenges in the past and worked through them. When the going gets tough, the tough get going, so to speak.

Argyle's sister, Veronica, had been a great help in that regard. Her job had moved her to Truro not long before Sarah was born, and this meant that she could help with childcare on select days. Though something in Goldie wondered if the possibility of working on Salty was part of what drew Veronica in. Truth be told Goldie had something of a mechanical background- she had worked on a dockside whilst in college, after all, which gave her a good sense of how cranes worked and how to fix machines- but she didn't feel up to repairing a loco yet. Not least as she didn't own one, and Sarah was rather her priority right now.

Five months in already. How the months seemed to fly by. Goldie had noted this to Argyle one night.

"It's May already," she said commented to him, as she got ready for bed.

"I know," Argyle said. "It's already getting quite warm outside. We'll soon be sleeping with the windows open!"

"Not quite what I meant," Goldie replied. "I meant that it's already four months since Sarah was born. Where did the last four months go?"

Argyle nodded. "I know the feeling. It only feels like a few moments since you showed me the test, but that was over a year ago."

"I hope this doesn't keep happening," Goldie said. "Or else she'll be an adult and we'll wonder where the time went!"

Argyle laughed. "Baby steps, Goldie. Let's walk before running and get this stage right."

Suddenly, crying started up. "Speaking of baby steps, I'll see to Sarah this time. You deserve some sleep."

One May day, it was lunchtime, and Goldie was out in public taking a walk, Sarah in her stroller. Goldie had rather hoped she'd stop getting unwanted attention now that the pregnancy was over (people constantly asking her when she was due had gotten very annoying, though she did rather understand kids being intrigued), but her hopes had been dashed as people were constantly gushing over her baby.

Goldie had mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, she did appreciate some of the advice she was getting (and of course she loved Sarah- what sort of mother wouldn't love their own child?). But she was at the same time getting unwanted information from people who, although they meant well, usually didn't seem to know what they were talking about.

Goldie came to a stop on the seafront, and sat down at a bench before securing the stroller in place and taking Sarah out. She'd grown up in an age when babysnatching had been an issue, and as such was taking no chances. She'd had a hard enough time having a child, so nobody was taking her baby from her.

Besides, she knew from the noises Sarah was making what she wanted. "Just a moment, Sarah. Mommy just has to get ready first."

Breastfeeding. Sometimes this had to be done in slightly awkward locations, but Goldie didn't mind it. If it helped her child's health, that was fine by her.

"Afternoon, Gloria."

Goldie glanced over to see a woman with pink skin and a yellow 'beehive' hairdo walking over. Goldie recognised her pretty quickly. This was Phyllis Cloverleaf, who had joined the Falmouth maternity group towards the end of Goldie's time there. She'd recently had her own child, a boy. Goldie had interacted with her a few times, but nothing really long term.

Goldie looked up. "Hello, Phyllis. Just breastfeeding Sarah here quickly. Anything you wanted to discuss?" She then noticed something. "Where's Samuel?"

Samuel was the name of Phyllis' son, and was somehow even noisier than Sarah. Goldie had no clue how Phyllis coped.

"He's in the care of my sister," Phyllis answered. "How's it going with Sarah?"

"Ups and downs, but then again that's true of almost all life," Goldie admitted. "I'd say it's worth it, though, though I must admit I'm looking forward to when she's a bit older, and we can start teaching her things."

Phyllis nodded. "Well, I've got a few things I'd like to raise with you on that front."

Goldie internally rolled her eyes. Oh boy, more unwanted advice, here we come.

Argyle had just finished paying for his shopping, and was loading it into bags. As per their existing arrangement, they took turns when doing jobs. Goldie had Sarah today, so he was handling shopping and supplies. In truth, this was what he did normally owing to the fact his job was in Falmouth whereas Goldie worked in Plymouth. He was also the one with a formal job right now (Goldie being on maternity leave), so he was fitting in these runs in between lecturing at the University or conducting research. Usually, he tried to work on Salty at least once a week as well.

"There we go," he said, picking up the bags. "I'll drop this lot at home, sort it out, then head back for the afternoon classes and office hour."

He was no sooner out of the door when a voice addressed him.

"Fancy seeing you here, doing shopping."

Argyle looked over and saw a face he wasn't hugely keen on standing there. This man was Carl Cloverleaf, another relatively recent father. He'd run into him a couple of times when picking Goldie up from her maternity support group, as his wife had joined... well, about five months ago. Safe to say Goldie had not massively appreciated being compared to a balloon.

"Fancy seeing you here, doing nothing," Argyle replied.

"Well, I'm not on deployment so I've got time. Private Security Contractors have downtime, you know? There's a limit to how many pipelines need guarding."

Argyle nodded. "I see. Well, I'm in a bit of a rush, so we could schedule a time to talk later and-"

What Carl said next threw Argyle for a loop.

"Good luck. You know, guys like you are best suited to raising girls."

Argyle stopped in his tracks, and turned around in surprise. "Excuse me?!" he asked.

Carl looked confused, as if what he'd just said was the most obvious thing in the world. "Well, let's be honest here," he said. "You're not the most muscular of guys. You bury your nose in books. Your wife has a higher paying job than you."

That remark particularly irritated Argyle. Why in the Seven Seas did it matter which spouse had the higher paying job?

But Carl was already continuing, before Argyle had a chance to respond. "Let's face it; if you'd lived in the Stone Age there's no way in Hell you'd survive the dinosaurs and pass on your genes- and by that I don't just mean not getting eating by the local T-Rex."

Argyle was astonished at just how confidently wrong this man was. Had he slept through history class? He facepalmed in utter disbelief. "There is so much wrong with that sentence. The dinosaurs went extinct about 65 million years ago. Modern humans appeared about 300,000 years ago. We've not been on this planet very long in the grand scheme of things." As an academic, he found such ignorance painful.

Carl completely missed the hint. "Well, keep telling yourself that."

"You can't use that in response to basic facts."

"And you completely missed the point I was making," Carl said. "It takes a certain type of man to raise a boy. And my point being that I'll raise my son to be a man."

Carl seemed to be stuck in another decade.

"You might be a little lost," Argyle said. "You're mindset is right out of the 1890s. There's more than one way to be a man. There's more to being a man than being male, and trust me most women don't want guys who can punch people through walls." He thought of a previous relationship his wife had mentioned to him, where it had become pretty clear early on that the guy was only interested in going to bed with her.

Carl snorted again. He was rivalling a horse for this. "Right. Says the man who works at a university. You must tell me what sort of love potion you were using to bag Goldie."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Argyle found this concept of 'love potion' quite problematic to say the least.

"You sit in an ivory tower and hypothesise about the hypothetical whilst we get baggage moved and mechanisms concluded."

Argyle rolled his eyes. "You know, the ability to use big words does not make you clever."

"It's a man's world out there!" Carl shouted, as he walked away. "Wheat from the chaff. We'll be the ones who make it what it is!"

"Then I'll be sure to teach Sarah that such outdated attitudes belong with those dinosaurs you think lived alongside modern man," Argyle replied, and began to walk away. "I hope he doesn't rub off on his son. God knows we don't need more people like him around here."

"You should ensure that she's wearing a hat at all times when outdoors, or else she may catch a chill," Phyllis finished.

"Even in this sort of heat?" Goldie said. She'd finished breastfeeding by now, and was now just holding her child.

"Always. I never go out without a woolly hat for Samuel."

Goldie could understand a sunhat for hot days, especially since Sarah had considerably less hair than she suspected she would eventually have, but a woolly hat? Really?

She turned to Phyllis. "I appreciate you want to be helpful, but what works for you as a mother doesn't neccesarily work for me. As such, the decision for how I choose to raise my child ultimately falls to me."

Phyllis straightened out her jacket. "Well, I'd best be on my way. It's almost two, and Samuel's sure to throw a fit if I don't give him his digger. He's very particular about that."

"Digger?" Goldie asked. Although she had lived in the UK for a while now, she still got confused with certain words specific to British English. "Oh. Excavator."

Phyllis laughed. "You Americans have such a funny way of talking. See you sometime!"

Goldie went back to focusing on her baby. "Don't mind her, Sarah."

"Hello dear!"

Goldie looked over her shoulder to see Argyle arrive. "Got the shopping, I see," she said, smiling.

"That's us good to go for another week," Argyle smiled. "Had to deal with Carl though- that level of wrongness made my head hurt."

"Phyllis is also a fountain of unwanted advice," Goldie said. "I know she means well, but some of it was just silly. And something in me is worried she just gives her son whatever he wants."

"Not for us to worry about," Argyle said. "We'll raise Sarah our way, not theirs."

Both parents were more than happy to agree to that.

Author's Note

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to a side story! This is my first ever side story compilation, and a sequel to another side story (a first, I know).

This first chapter is based on a story my mother told me about when I was a relative newborn. When out in public with me, she would often receive unsolicited advice about raising children from random strangers. Many of them were older women, and although they meant well their advice was often counterproductive. A common one was to ensure I always had a woolly hat on outdoors, which could be counterproductive on hot summer days.

The segment with Carl is loosely based on a conversation about bad science depicted in a video by science YouTuber SciManDan, which included the bizarre claim that the men who survived to pass on their genes were the ones who could defend women from velociraptors. Carl is a character created by Tomlight Sparkle 1 for his Star Wars continuity, partly to explain where Sprout got his bigoted attitudes from.

For those wondering where Argyle and Goldie's kid is called Sarah here and not Sunny, well... next chapter shall be most illuminating on that front.