Without a baby, what’s a boomer?

Tuesday, Feb. 18, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

I AM ONE of countless childless baby-boomers who enjoy their independence.

I go out whenever I like and return home as late as I choose.

I've never been to a PTA meeting, never was called to the principal's office and have never worried about the kids throwing a wild party while I was away.

My friends, also babyless boomers, have enjoyed such lives of leisure without regrets or societal retribution.

But things are changing.

First, Madonna -- herself a baby boomer -- announces to the world she's trading in her metal bustier for a maternity gown and gives birth to a 6-pound, 9-ounce baby girl named Lourdes Maria Ciccone Leon.

The last name is that of the proud sperm donor.

And then Melissa Etheridge tells the world that being gay, born in Leavenworth, Kan., and having a voice and an attitude like Bob Dylan's evil twin sister isn't strange enough.

Last week, she and her lover, filmmaker Julie Cypher, became proud parents of a baby girl, Bailey Jean.

Daughter, mother and mother are doing fine, and the sperm donor -- if he's still alive -- is keeping a low profile.

Not to be outdone, Michael Jackson last week fathered a baby boy. In this case, the sperm donor is the loving parent, and the mother, Debbie Rowe, is the nurse to the father's plastic surgeon.

And so Wacko Jacko -- unarguably the nation's weirdest baby boomer -- and his wife-nurse stand to offer their child the most "normal" upbringing of the three aforementioned celebrity parents.

The couple have yet to choose a name for their son. The rumor is he will be named Michael Jackson Jr., or perhaps Eli Dion, as a masculine tribute to Michael's two best friends and role models: Elizabeth Taylor and Diana Ross.

I suggest they name the boy Trouble, because that's what he, Lourdes and Bailey Jean have brought into my life.

It started with my mom, who would end every telephone conversation with, "That freak with the fake nose and gold-plated shin guards can give his mother a grandson. What about you?"

And my childless female friends, who never before cared that their biological clocks are pushing midnight, now drop their copies of Parenting Today magazine when I walk by and hiss things like, "What's he going to do with that sperm, take it to the grave?"

Even in the poker room -- the last bastion of bachelorhood -- I inadvertently broke up a lively game of Texas hold 'em when I announced to the dealer that I had a "baby flush."

That's when I noticed she was wearing a breast pin with a picture of a smiling baby and the word "Interested?"

She broke into tears, and I was blamed for breaking up the game.

"It's all right," I said to the angry players. "How about a game of of seven-card stud?"

"Did someone mention a stud?" a female floor supervisor said as several poker players, fear in their eyes, hurriedly left the card room.