That first night in the hospital after I had my daughter, Rachael, was one of the most restless nights of my life. My body was still a little sore from the whole birth thing, but thankfully I had had the sense to realize that I was not all that into pain and told my wonderful doctor at three months pregnant that I would like an epidural. She smiled at me believing that I wanted to wait until I was in labor for the back-breaking shot, but I could have used one then, too.
In an effort to give you maximum bonding time, they put the baby in a shallow, serving table contraption and let them “sleep” in the room with you. I didn’t get hardly a wink that night. Frankly, I was too freaked to sleep. From now on, and ‘til the day I die, I had this person who was now my number one priority. During my time as a pregnant woman I had all of these goofy and endearing fantasies about life with a baby, but now that I was actually faced with an infant I realized that I was completely unprepared. I had not been around babies in at least 15 years. My husband, Jeff, and I were the first couple, amongst our friends, to have a baby, and I was walking into full-time childcare with no experience. New motherhood is like walking into the cockpit of a 747 and having someone tell you to fly the plane safely to Detroit.
After a few months of hits and misses, like those tired days when you completely forget to put the diaper on before the sleeper, and some serious amounts of Zoloft for the post-partum depression (Kiss my ass, Tom Cruise!), I had the mother thing down. My sweet little, peanut baby is now a destructive, mischievous toddler who watches Dora the Explorer and steals household objects on a regular basis. She hides her finds in the elephant toy box that my mom refurbished as a memento from my childhood. The last time I cleaned it out I found the following: two pairs of Jeff’s socks, a role of toilet paper, one of the dog’s bandanas, and a package of maxi pads; all of the essentials in life that you need during a good disposable cotton shortage.
I am now left to wrestle with my fears of how my child might turn out. She is creative, energetic, and smart as a whip figuring out everything from childproof locks to remote controls quickly. A smart kid is a double-edged sword. While you rejoice in the fact that they are advanced, as you watch them stack their pillows and stuffed animals one on top of the other to build a makeshift platform so they can leap out of the crib, you realize that you are screwed. She will always try to get one past you, and you’re going to have to keep on your toes in order to get her from childhood to a productive adult safely and without any unwanted teenage pregnancies.
I look at my little one and wonder what she’ll be like as a teenager. My worst fear is not that she will be one of those obnoxious goth girls who wants to dye her hair jet black and wear lots of purple velvet, but that she will become something far worse: a mall chick. You know what I mean when I say, “mall chick”. Those pretentious, bitchy, shiny-haired, too-skinny blondies who use the word “like” way too much, and won’t speak to you unless you have a designer handbag. They usually travel in packs of three, and one of them is always a Brittney or Ashley. Their male counterparts are those white guys who talk like they are from the ghetto and dress in designer clothes that hang off their ass like its melting candle wax. Most of them have never met a black person, but they think they know everything about black culture. I can’t stand the mall chicks and the white ghetto boys. My worst fear is that Rachael will become one of them in an attempt to rebel.
As a punk mama, it wouldn’t affect me one bit if she picked a rainbow hair color or got a piercing, although my straight-laced husband would completely flip. I wouldn’t care if she listened to hardcore music, in fact, she would probably be able to help me find new stuff to listen to. I dream of the day that we can sit side by side and watch The Ramones: End of the Century documentary and I can teach her everything I know about punk music. When she has the desire to dye her hair black, although it may not be the best color for her, I will step in and help her avoid winding up with a black stained neck.
Alas, these dreams probably won’t happen. Somewhere in a Superman Bizarro-like universe, which is probably a few exits up I-405 in Bellevue, there is a mommy with a 19-month-old little girl looking forward to the day that she can take her shiny-haired blondie to the mall and buy designer handbags together. In the future I imagine we meet while sitting on one of the benches at the mall as her daughter shops at Hot Topic and Rachael is perusing the goods at Nordstrom. We give each other a resigned look as we envy each other’s teenagers both secretly knowing that these results were inevitable. We sip our Starbucks coffee beverages gratefully, because we know that if we are at least in the proximity of our college bound, teenage girls and neither one of them are pregnant, shiny or falsely black hair aside, we’ve done our jobs.
I guess that’s the whole purpose of motherhood; do your best and hope that your kid doesn’t need too much therapy. Love your kids no matter how they turn out, and get them from childhood to adulthood while supporting their dreams and helping them make a happy life. I’ve heard someday they will reward you with grandchildren, but I think they reward you a little bit everyday even if its just looking sweet as they sleep after spending all of their waking hours throwing around the laundry you just folded and terrorizing the dog. As a punk mama I rejoice in the fact that I have no conceived expectations for my child other than asking her to always do her best. If her best is to be a “C” student, then so be it. I don’t expect her to be a beauty queen, a genius, a prodigy, or talented in any way. I just want her to figure out what she likes and find a dream to pursue. If that dream is to own a designer handbag, then I’ll deal with it, but if her dream just happens to involve hardcore music, then I’ll do a little happy Snoopy dance.
Either way, she’s my baby, and I’m her mommy and in the end, we go about our day. She poops, I change the diaper. She makes a mess eventually I clean it up. She enjoys watching Dora; I slightly go insane little by little listening to the annoying music. She sits in her car seat during a drive; I switch between the punk and hardcore music channels on XFM. After all, a little subliminal context never hurt anyone.
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