Babies On Da Brain

(Disclaimer: Before we begin, you should know that I am not pregnant. I do not plan on being pregnant in the next two or more years until I am done with both my undergrad degree and am well on my way through my master’s degree. I am not waiting for an “accident” to occur. I am taking proper precautions to make sure one does not happen. If you are worried about the content of the following post, you need to remember that I am just expressing my frustrations. I do not intend to follow them up with immediate action so please do not contact me about how it would be a major mistake for me to have a child right now. {And just so we're clear here} THIS MEANS YOU, MOM!)

Everywhere I look, I see babies. I see them in the grocery store, at school, on TV, on the internet, in a friend's email attachments, on cereal boxes and shampoo bottles, in the backseat of the car next to me while waiting at a red light, even at the Oregon Country Fair (and that’s why you aren’t seeing too many photos from that event. I took a bunch but I was terribly distracted by all the babies that kept crossing my path. I didn’t take pictures of them because parents are generally overly paranoid when it comes to that sort of thing). I’m not saying that babies are consuming my every waking thought… but they are definitely popping up a whole lot on the radar screen recently.

Here’s some background information for those who don’t know: I am 29 years old and in the last year of my undergraduate degree. I have no children, no spouse, and no mortgage. I feel like a nineteen year old fresh out in the world who has no clue what she’s doing most of the time. I don’t know why my car makes the funny noise that it does, I have a hard time remembering how to boil an egg correctly, I still eat spaghettio’s when I have to cook for myself, I clean the litter box when I feel like it rather than like every other day or third day, I’m not sure how my 401k works and whether I am utilizing it efficiently or not, and I’ve had ice cream for breakfast several days last month (mostly due to the weather). I rarely feel like an adult but somehow I manage to get the rent paid and get to work everyday and take upper division college classes whenever possible. So I am not a teenager and I am not planning on the unwed mother thing, (although with proper measures and a whole lot of maturity, I do believe that sort of thing can work), I have supposedly been around the block for a few years to know the demands that babies have on sleep, finances, time… basically every aspect of a mother’s life.

That being said, I still want a baby. Badly. The clock is ticking louder this year then ever before in my life. I’m not entirely positive why that is. According to one report, a woman’s chance of getting pregnant in a cycle is 50%. But for women between the age of 27 and 34, that chance drops to 40%. Ten percent isn’t all that much in the grand scheme of things, but oh my goodness, does it make a difference! And that could play a role in how I’m feeling. But I think a bigger part has something to do with my depression and one of the underlying causes I’ve been able to pinpoint in the last few months. I am depressed because I don’t feel as if I’m on the same time line as a lot of other people my age. There seems to be this culturally defined and accepted timeline for young people in our society: A person graduates high school at eighteen, goes through four years of college, gets a degree (unless graduate school calls), moves out into the big bad world, and struggles to jump up the ladder from all those shitty grunt work jobs. Soon a person is expected to marry “the one” just after landing their dream job. And then the babies start popping out once the ink is dry on a brand new mortgage. Our society and specifically the media makes it seem like all of this happens between the ages of 22 and 30 (unless we highlight the "desperate" attempts of a woman over the age of 30 trying to snag herself a man). I recognize that there infinite possibilities and technically everyone is different in their timelines. However, I feel like a failure for not following this prescribed timeline, even just a little bit. I’ll be 30 when I graduate with a degree. I don’t have a husband or children or a permanent place where I can paint the walls and start a vegetable garden. I feel like a drifter in my own life and it keeps me depressed.

Of course, that is the big catch-22. It seems like it would be a big mistake at this time for me to be in a family situation with my fragile disposition. I can’t imagine affecting a spouse and children with my short temper, my crying spells, my procrastination, and my bouts of suicidal thoughts. It’s bad enough on just a household of one. So how do I happily get what I want when it’s the very thing that keeps me depressed because I don’t have it? I could (and have an opportunity now) to go down the settled path but I fear the experiment might not work out. I can’t just try out a new life and then decide it’s not the thing that will help alleviate my depression. I know it doesn’t work that way. Pregnancy, marriage, child-rearing… they all take a toll on a person. I don’t know if I could handle that kind of toll and I don’t know if I’m ready for it. I know a lot of people out there would argue with me that having these things does not necessarily make a person happy. And of course, the grass is always greener. I know a few parents that wish they weren’t tied down. I know a few people who would like to travel and do other things besides pay a mortgage every month. I know a few people envy me for not being so stuck in one place. But I envy their groundedness, their predictable schedules, their baby pictures on the wall, the family time spent together, the holidays, the fights, and the quiet and peaceful feeling of everyone sleeping under the same roof.

I feel very wrong in my single life. Something is either missing or off on a daily basis. Some days it’s the baby seat I can picture when I look in my rear view mirror. Sometimes it’s the recipe I don’t cook because there aren’t enough people around to eat it. Sometimes it’s the combination of maddening silence, persistent darkness, and a freezing cold bed that I wake up to in the middle of the night. When someone is asked what gives their life meaning, they tend to say their spouse, their children, their home, their family as a whole. Since I left home, I can’t say that I feel as if I belong to any one family. I have this need to feel connected on a daily basis to a real home. Since moving out of my parent’s house, I haven’t found this for myself, even after 6 different apartments in 8 years. Apartments are not homes. They are square boxes that just hold stuff. Mine is missing a whole lot of stuff. I need baby pictures on my fridge. I need a toy chest to take up a corner of the living room with lots of little toys in it. I need a dining room table with seats that are filled come dinner time. I need these and many more tangible things in order to feel more whole.

I know that life would not be suddenly wonderful with a family. I know there would be many ups and downs. I’m sure I would make many mistakes, if not completely scar a kid with my ideas about life and my perseverance in making their childhood as perfect as possible. My goals for any child of mine are to create an environment where love is the foremost emotion, intelligence and creativity are encouraged at every possible chance, and where I can teach them to think for themselves and learn to be whoever it is they want to be. I want to watch a child discover her world and move far beyond all of the things I’ve learned and experienced. I want my child to be true to herself, make a few mistakes and grow up largely unscathed into a beautiful and healthy young woman. I have some specific rules that I intend to enforce (low sugar, minimal TV, no pink legos ever :), and I intend to instill respect and discipline without using corporal punishment… but I’m not sure how that will happen yet). I want a happy, healthy, bright child with a future that is limitless. That’s not too much to ask, is it? Of course, if I don’t use common sense and learn to be bendy when appropriate, I could end up on Dr. Phil or being immortalized in some Broadway play as a very bad mother. Or on the flip side, if I don’t grow a backbone around children soon, I could end up with a little hellion that terrorizes the family cats, throws tantrums before, during, and after the terrible twos, and who never learns to value his situation and be thankful for what he is given and what he has in life. I'm scared that I would make some horrible mistakes and really screw up my child. I'm scared I wouldn't be able to give her all the things she needs. And I'm scared that I wouldn't have the emotional strength to be a good mother. I think a person needs to be financially, emotionally and physically ready to be a parent. And from all that I've heard, even those things don't gaurantee success. Maybe my anxiety is why I'm almost 30 and childless.


As usual, I find myself avoiding the very thing I need to overcome.


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FOR THE DAY WHEN I NEED ADVICE- SARCASTIC OR OTHERWISE- I'LL TURN TO IMPERFECTPARENT. COM TO REREAD SOME OF THESE GEMS:

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Mother Earth be damned, I slunk to the store where I purchased my first pack of disposable diapers. When my time comes, I won’t go directly to hell, however, because I didn’t scoop up the internationally recognizable Pampers with the chubby pink baby on it. No, I chose the environmentally friendly kind made from pine fiber and yak’s hair. Well, they’re made of something other than that ooky petroleum-based stuff all the major brands use.

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Ask the Angry Baby

Q: My 18-month-old takes off his diaper whenever he's in bed, and I often end up having to change the sheets. Why does he do this?

A: Hmmmm, why is he taking off a stinky, pee-pee soaked diaper? Let's do an experiment: Cut two holes in a plastic grocery bag. Put it on. Now shove one of those pad thingys that mommy has in there. And pee. Come on, keep it coming. Now go lie down in bed and try to go to sleep. You get it now, sucky? Sometimes you parents are so stupid. And what, you haven't heard of pajamas? Why the hell is your kid just in his diaper? Come on, be a big spender and spring for some nice soft PJs, not too small, and skip the duckies and teddy bears, I hate that crap.