Saturday, June 11, 2011
Why I Won't Eff Up Next Time
I've been doing a lot of thinking about parenting and how the majority of us get thrown into it with no real training. I mean, there are always those parents-to-be who've read every book ever written on birth, babies, toddlers, and parenting in general... but I was not one of those.
Nope, I was a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of mommy-to-be. Actually, I wasn't even that good. I'm pretty sure I didn't even have pants to begin with. I stepped into pregnancy with only a few pieces of knowledge: I would have sex. That would lead to me getting pregnant. Over the course of several months, my midsection would grow exponentially larger, leading eventually to a baby.
I had to take a Driver's Ed course in high school before my parents would let me get behind the wheel of a vehicle as a licensed driver. You'd think somewhere there'd be a Parent's Ed for those of us who grew up without younger siblings and no real exposure to birth, babies, and parenting (other than the parenting our parents gave to us, which i remember mostly as being told 'no, you can't' and sneaking off to do whatever i wanted to do in the first place)
I thought I was educating myself sufficiently by reading "What to Expect When You're Expecting" - and, incidentally, a more accurate title for that would be "Don't Read This if You're Pregnant: It Will Scare the Poop Out of Your Constipated Self" because it's like every worst-case scenario of pregnancy, all rolled into a book with a misleadingly comforting cover. It's like putting a picture of Clifford the Big Red Dog on the cover of Stephen King's "Cujo."
Once I actually had my son in my arms, it suddenly occurred to me that I had no real training for this job. Someone had just handed me a really small, really needy, really breakable person and told me that I was responsible for it and to enjoy the blessed state of motherhood. Meanwhile, I was wishing I had read a User's Guide at some point, rather than 'Cujo the Big Red Dog' because the info on preeclampsia and gestational diabetes and placenta previa wasn't doing me a lot of good now.
I'm pretty sure I didn't change any of the baby's diapers for the first four days, simply because I'd never tried to change a diaper before that point in my life. My husband, who had helped friends with their babies in the past, became the Official Diaper Changer. He got the best job.
From that point on, I spent all my time with a newborn either attached to my breast or asleep on my lap while I had my nose in a book, trying to catch up on all this stuff I probably should have read before Step One of the Becoming A Parent Plan.
My life had suddenly become "Alice Through the Looking-Glass" with milk-stained shirts, disposable diaper blow-outs, and that amazing paranoid giddiness that one can only get when utterly sleep deprived.
In other words, I completed effed up with the first baby. Let's call him my Starter Baby, because much like your Starter Car, you do things that probably won't break it but certainly aren't good for it... like forgetting to change the oil for a six month period. Or driving over cement parking lot bumper curbs. Or knocking a large strawberry Jamba Juice all over the passenger floorboard and mopping it up with a towel without actually scrubbing the sugary, fruity mess out of the carpet because it surely won't mold up and make the car smell horrible for the rest of its life.
But just like with your Starter Car, Starter Baby gave me lots of training for how not the eff up the next one. Plus, I've read what equates to the Library of Congress of parenting books, and even though they almost all disagree with each other on one point or another, I feel like I've at least had the basic training necessary to maybe not crash and burn as interestingly with baby number two as I did with my poor Starter Baby.
So I feel completely confident saying there's no way I could ever eff up next time. It's not like babies are different from one another, right?
Nope, I was a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of mommy-to-be. Actually, I wasn't even that good. I'm pretty sure I didn't even have pants to begin with. I stepped into pregnancy with only a few pieces of knowledge: I would have sex. That would lead to me getting pregnant. Over the course of several months, my midsection would grow exponentially larger, leading eventually to a baby.
I had to take a Driver's Ed course in high school before my parents would let me get behind the wheel of a vehicle as a licensed driver. You'd think somewhere there'd be a Parent's Ed for those of us who grew up without younger siblings and no real exposure to birth, babies, and parenting (other than the parenting our parents gave to us, which i remember mostly as being told 'no, you can't' and sneaking off to do whatever i wanted to do in the first place)
I thought I was educating myself sufficiently by reading "What to Expect When You're Expecting" - and, incidentally, a more accurate title for that would be "Don't Read This if You're Pregnant: It Will Scare the Poop Out of Your Constipated Self" because it's like every worst-case scenario of pregnancy, all rolled into a book with a misleadingly comforting cover. It's like putting a picture of Clifford the Big Red Dog on the cover of Stephen King's "Cujo."
Once I actually had my son in my arms, it suddenly occurred to me that I had no real training for this job. Someone had just handed me a really small, really needy, really breakable person and told me that I was responsible for it and to enjoy the blessed state of motherhood. Meanwhile, I was wishing I had read a User's Guide at some point, rather than 'Cujo the Big Red Dog' because the info on preeclampsia and gestational diabetes and placenta previa wasn't doing me a lot of good now.
I'm pretty sure I didn't change any of the baby's diapers for the first four days, simply because I'd never tried to change a diaper before that point in my life. My husband, who had helped friends with their babies in the past, became the Official Diaper Changer. He got the best job.
From that point on, I spent all my time with a newborn either attached to my breast or asleep on my lap while I had my nose in a book, trying to catch up on all this stuff I probably should have read before Step One of the Becoming A Parent Plan.
My life had suddenly become "Alice Through the Looking-Glass" with milk-stained shirts, disposable diaper blow-outs, and that amazing paranoid giddiness that one can only get when utterly sleep deprived.
In other words, I completed effed up with the first baby. Let's call him my Starter Baby, because much like your Starter Car, you do things that probably won't break it but certainly aren't good for it... like forgetting to change the oil for a six month period. Or driving over cement parking lot bumper curbs. Or knocking a large strawberry Jamba Juice all over the passenger floorboard and mopping it up with a towel without actually scrubbing the sugary, fruity mess out of the carpet because it surely won't mold up and make the car smell horrible for the rest of its life.
But just like with your Starter Car, Starter Baby gave me lots of training for how not the eff up the next one. Plus, I've read what equates to the Library of Congress of parenting books, and even though they almost all disagree with each other on one point or another, I feel like I've at least had the basic training necessary to maybe not crash and burn as interestingly with baby number two as I did with my poor Starter Baby.
So I feel completely confident saying there's no way I could ever eff up next time. It's not like babies are different from one another, right?
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