So you think you're a good parent...

Yeah, I know. We sacrifice for our kids. We endure 26 hours of back labor, leave our jobs to stay home with them, nurse them until our ta-tas want to fall off, lose sleep when they wake us up with a fever, give up our free time to chauffer them to their activities, drive ourselves to insanity playing Candyland for the 20-millionth time. We love our kids.

BUT...are we willing to:

• Walk 70 miles across an icy desert, day and night without sleeping, to the place where we are destined to conceive, birth, and care for them until they can care for themselves?
• Endure months of gestation without the support of our partner, who will be off gorging on seafood while we fast the entire time?
• During this fasting time, sit on the ice protecting our child while blizzards rage around us?

And moms, are you willing to let the dads take credit for the majority of this?

I consider myself a pretty good parent. But when we watched March of the Penguins recently, I realized I've got nothing on emperor penguins. They annually walk miles day and night to their birthplace to mate, then when the female lays the egg, the male carefully balances it on his feet, hiding it under a belly flap, while the female leaves for a few months to eat, swim, and play. When she returns to relieve the male, the chick will already have hatched, protected through raging Antarctic blizzards by the male, who has not eaten anything during this time. They trade off every few weeks until summer, when the whole family treks back to the ocean. And they repeat this process EVERY. YEAR. I love my kids, and I would die for them if necessary. But would I willingly go through this annually just to HAVE another kid? Doubtful!

I loved this documentary, and Morgan Freeman kicks butt as the narrator. Audrey, however, is very tender-hearted with regard to animals, and was brought to tears at times when penguin eggs froze and cracked, fathers succumbed to the cold, mothers were eaten by seals, and babies were attacked by birds of prey. At the part where the mothers return and meet the babies for the first time, bringing food (in the form of regurgitated fish), I said, "Look, these all made it!" "Yeah," she replied, and then burst into tears and said "Except for the ones that DIED!" It was almost comical, and at times I despair at how overdramatic she can be. But I know someday this will translate into great sensitivity to the sufferings of others.

That, or she will be a highly skilled actress by the time she reaches puberty.