She kicked so hard that night. Always active, she squirmed and writhed and danced in my belly so vigorously that my husband and I were in stitches watching the show. The next morning, my water broke, over a month early. I fully believe she kicked her way out of me. Whether or not we were ready, she was.
Four years later, I’m so deeply in love with my smart, sweet, curious, funny, weird, and beautiful little girl that I feel floored as I write this. I often feel unequal to the task of parenthood; but there’s no choice but to keep trying to rise to it.
I wanted to mark the occasion by writing something, but I struggle to write about parenthood. It’s not just my story to tell, and I want her to have ownership over her side of it—in most if not all ways, by far the most important one. But my thoughts and feelings and experiences are of course valid too. So, by way of recording how they’ve evolved, here’s a little listicle of random things about parenthood I might tell my former self, four years ago, if I could have. It’s longer than I envisaged. I could have kept this up indefinitely.
1. Your kid will smell better to you than anything else in the world. The new baby smell is great, but it’s the little kid smell I love even more, in all of its daily vicissitudes and nuances—from the freshly washed hair at bedtime to the hot sticky-sweetness of her breath to the faint eau de bus when she comes home from pre-K.
2. Your kid will annoy you more than you even thought possible. It will be impossible to cherish every moment.
3. Your kid will change so quickly and things you worried about incessantly will often feel like a non-issue soon afterward. Things you thought were an awesome personality trait or a gift from you—like an adventurous appetite—will fade overnight, making a mockery of your smugness.
4. You will remain largely the same, contra the popular idea in philosophy of parenthood as a transformative experience. In particular, you will remain good at what you’re good at (in my case, producing vats of delicious food, daily meals, keeping track of minutiae, internet sleuthing, remaining calm in the face of chaos) and bad at what you’re bad at (rolling with it, being interrupted and having to be out of your own head constantly, embracing clutter, mornings).
5. Podcasts are your friend (semi-literally, during the pandemic). Yes, talk to your baby. But for many of the long stretches of quiet, when a million dull caregiving and household tasks need attending to, comforting, interesting podcasts will make it a pleasure rather than feel interminable. I hesitate to even try to estimate how many hours I’ve listened—and sometimes re-listened—to my favorites over the past four years.
6. There is no better sound than “Mommy, I love you, my squishy little mommy.” The idea of minding your body being “squishy” and also “squeezy” and “cozy” to your daughter will seem, at best, distant.
7. There is no more irritating sound in the world than “Mommy, mommy, mommy” over and over again, interminably, with your child’s requests, demands, questions. They are doing exactly what they should be doing, and engaging you how they can. And, to the extent that it’s possible, they need you to be engaged and even enthusiastic. You just need some peace and quiet. It’s one of the many hard things about being a parent: sometimes the needs of parent and child are radically mismatched, and there’s nothing to be done about this except muddle through as well as possible.
8. The crusts of the simple food you make your kid in rotation—peanut butter toast, raisin toast, grilled cheese, sliced fruit, cucumber and carrot sticks—will make you appreciate the classics again. You should not subsist on these dregs, tempting though it can be sometimes during a busy workday.
9. You will miss more exciting foods greatly during the loooong neophobic phase (still ongoing) where your kid doesn’t want to eat anything remotely interesting. It will sometimes, but not always, be worth it to make these foods just for yourself (my husband is not an adventurous eater either, alas).
10. Rest is the key to everything. It will be impossible to get enough of it sometimes but not always. There is no godly or earthly reason why a partner—especially a male partner—should get more of it. (Which, oftentimes, they do: see male entitlement.) The fact that your husband enables you to sleep in by taking mornings, while you handle nighttime stuff, will be one of your saving graces in ever getting work done or feeling vaguely human.
11. Your kid’s taste will defy and educate you from the moment they develop it. Never one for a particularly femme aesthetic yourself, you will learn to love pink, unicorns, rainbows, tutus, floofiness, and to revalue the feminine-coded in general.
12. Halloween will become fun, having previously been a holiday you didn’t particularly like or even get. (To be fair, I didn’t grow up with it in the Australia of the eighties and nineties—I think things have changed now). A family costume will no longer seem appallingly twee, but rather a fun expression of your child’s newfound creativity and agency.
13. The pet names you end up calling your child could never have been predicted. In your case: “cute-cumber,” “S Bug,” and “Cranky Potato.” All of these are genuinely affectionate, and the last is a reliable way to produce fits of giggles.
14. Your kid will be, in ways both worrisome and awesome, both depressing and reassuring, exactly like you.
15. Your kid will be so utterly their own person that the previous point is moot.
16. The moment you realize your kid truly has a mind of their own—and an iron will to go with it—will be simultaneously thrilling and terrifying. Ditto the moment you realize they have more energy than you do. NB: this will not improve during the toddler years.
17. You think you will never get past fears and regrets that will in fact recede very quickly.
18. Some fears and regrets will only get worse and more deep-seated.
19. Consuming media about children getting hurt—especially news reports, but even fiction—will become instantly infinitely more difficult, even though it was always difficult for you.
20. Facing some things will be easier. Other things, much harder (see above), especially given that keeping at least a degree of equanimity and self-regulating for the sake of a person largely incapable of doing so yet will become a moral mandate.
21. You will miss being able to let your emotions go. You will not miss the consequences of doing so.
22. Finding and calling someone beautiful will come to have an entirely new meaning. It will have nothing to do with assessment or consumption or comparison. It will mean, among other things, “I am so happy to see your being radiating and vibrating through your person.”
23. You will become much more open about some things, much less so about others.
24. It will be difficult to write about the struggles, which is how you process things (see this entire substack) and how you get support (often, on social media). Your kid’s need for privacy and to have ownership over their story will seem very obvious. (Despite having only recently made my account public, and having a tiny following, I no longer post images which include my daughter’s face on my Instagram; lately I’m not even sure I want her body to appear there either.)
25. Great teachers are life-changing.
26. Great babysitters are a lifesaver.
27. Great parent-friends are a lifeline.
28. A lot of stuff is going to come up. Working through it will be the work of a lifetime—but a labor of love also. It’s the stuff you don’t even know you should be working through that will still keep you up at night.
29. You will become sentimental (see this post). You will still be embarrassed to be so. Oftentimes, you’ll shrug and lean into it anyway (witness the fact that I posted this).
30. You will become simultaneously softer and fiercer than you ever imagined.
Readers with kids, does any of this resonate? Or is your experience—and I emphasize the above is just mine—very different? And readers without kids, what might you tell your former self about some of your big journeys?
as a parent of 3 (ages 23, 21, and 16), i would add: the things you think you have figured out as a parent may just be dumb luck –– a fortuitous match between your approach and your particular kid's need. because then you might have another kid for whom that approach completely fails.
there is nothing more humbling.
I appreciate this, because it helps me understand what my sister experiences with her two.
I would simply like to say to my past self that whatever you thought being an aunt would be like, well, get ready, because it's going to be EVEN better. It's going to reaffirm your choice to not have children, because just having little ones to dote on that aren't your own IS enough for you. It's going to open up a well of love in you that you didn't know existed. Aunting is going to be a dream you didn't know you had.