Me, posing and staring at my son who is doing something he is not supposed to.
So you want to have a baby. Spring is around the corner and people are getting ready to reproduce. I heard too much baby-talk lately so I think it is necessary to enlighten some of you out there. Let’s get pregnant, honey. That’s the biggest decision you’ve ever made in your life. And with it comes an endless list of to-dos, supply needs, and pointers to make sure you don’t screw up this kid’s childhood. But before you get to any of that, have you double-checked that you have all the necessary prerequisites to be eligible for the role of “parent”?
Surely, if you’re ready to take on that responsibility, all of the below should be no problem:
Keep a minimum of two plants alive for at least three months
Plug in your phone before going to bed so it’s not dead when you wake up five nights in a row
Mark all 6,709 unread emails on your phone as “read”
Learn the difference once and for all between shallots, scallops, and scallions
Cancel the subscription to the gym membership you accidentally enrolled in five years ago
Carry a watermelon around for a full day without dropping it
Schedule a doctor’s appointment about that thing
Schedule a dentist appointment about that other thing
Schedule a therapist appointment about many things
Breathe exclusively through your nose until you’re done reading this list
Delete any tweets you may have written talking shit about babies
Ask your parents if your own existence was really worth the effort
Schedule another therapist appointment after the above conversation
Three to five years relevant experience in keeping yourself and things (plants, cats, dogs, fishies….) alive
Ask yourself if you really want to go back to living with a roommate at this stage of your life
Review your calendar and make sure you don’t have any commitments over the next two decades that would conflict with raising a child
Watch Being John Malkovich right away. This has nothing to do with learning about parenting, but it’s just the kind of movie that’s a little too heady for a baby to appreciate
Listen to “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac without crying
Listen to “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac and realize that it’s actually brave if you cry
Couldn’t hurt to brush up on your multiplication tables
Start eliminating baby names based on who’s trending online
Unmute all your parent friends whose Instagram posts are quickly shifting from obnoxious to relatable
Forget every statistic you’ve ever read about climate change and overpopulation
Get in the habit of spelling out words you don’t want your kid to repeat, like F-U-C-K-I-N-G-S-H-I-T
Google “having baby scared don’t know what i’m doing”
Get ahead of the curve and familiarize yourself with the PAW Patrol extended universe
Shriek in the background of your partner’s Zoom calls to make sure they’ve got a handle on the mute button
Attend a mandatory three-hour virtual seminar about how to properly onboard your baby into existence
Update your household’s style guide to render a verdict on whether to call the baby by its first name, a nickname, or “Mr. Baby”
Reach out to current moms (at any child stage but preferably newborns or teenagers) you know for an informational coffee at their home with the kid(s) present
Remember that no matter how unfathomable becoming a parent may seem, literally billions of people have done it before you, and most of them didn’t have iPads to shove in front of their kids’ faces when things got tough. It will be miserable, it will be the best thing that’s ever happened to you, and it will be a great excuse to stock up on applesauce
Oh shit, almost forgot: DIAPERS. Jesus, yes, definitely get an avalanche of diapers. However many diapers you think you need, quadruple it. You will no longer have a home. You’ll have a diaper storage unit with beds in it