I’ve been told that many programs exist to educate young women on the perils of early motherhood. You know, avoid teen pregnancy and such. I’ve only heard of this sex education because I went to a Catholic girls’ school. We don’t talk about those things there. Plus, none of us were going to have sex because we were saving ourselves for marriage.

Obviously.

Now, I imagine that much of this teen-pregnancy/smart-sex/use-protection-or-die education centers around the economic burden of motherhood, the extreme responsibility, the destruction of one’s social life, and perhaps the reality of missed or limited opportunities facing a girl who’s 15 and pregnant.

This may work. But I really believe there is a better way. When I think back to my teenaged self, so cool, so hot, so together and omniscient, I can’t help but think my sorry ass would not have given two shits about economics or social life or responsibility, because I didn’t really know much about those things. I had no perspective. I had no idea that not leaving your house for 2 months or talking only to toddlers would make me want to crawl in a hole and wither. I had no idea how hard it is to pay only the really late bills because the current ones still have a tolerance window (I mean bills don’t even become real until they’re a month late, right?).

However, there is one thing I understood, and that’s humiliation. I understood that. That hit my fragile egoic self where it hurt. I also understood things that are fucking disgusting. For example, dog shit.

And so, I propose that we tell young girls stories like the one I’m about to tell. We could compile our stories and market the anthology as The Best Birth Control Ever.

It would be like that camp they send disturbed youth to – the one where they attempt to shock them into obedience – they yell at them and take them to prisons and abandon them in the wilderness, doing their best to scare the living shit outta them until they snap out of their delusion and realize they’re ruining their lives. It would be like that, only for motherhood.

Remember Laser? Oh yeah, sweet little bundle of Labrador. Sweet, psychotic bundle of holy-fuck-what-was-I-thinking-getting-a-puppy. Yes, him.

Anyhoo, we were in Tahoe.  We went to the grocery store. Mac, the older kids and my mom went into the store for supplies and Starbuck’s while I waited in the car with Georgia and both dogs. While I waited, I opened the door next to Georgia’s car seat so I could play with her and prolong the point at which she loses her fucking mind because she realizes she’s trapped in a seat and there are things happening without me damnit! While standing there, Laser was sort of jumping on the seat next to her, on the other side of the car. I ignored him. At one point, however, he put his nose across Georgia’s lap and I noticed some brown stuff on it. I thought it was peanut butter.

[Warning: this story is disgusting. Remember: SHOCK TREATMENT. We’re going for shock here people. If we sugar-coat we won’t be as effective.]

I leaned over to see what was on his nose and I realized in a moment of horror that it was not peanut butter  at all. It was poop. It was dog poop. I determined this thanks to my keen olfactory senses. The  next few moments happened in slow motion, but so fast I couldn’t believe it was happening. It was like a car accident. Time slows down but it’s moving at lightning speed.

I look at the seat under  the dog. There is a giant pile of dog diarrhea. My heart stops. Things are dire. Life and death, Janelle. Don’t fuck up. I assess the situation. He’s about to step in it. I must get him out. I bolt to the other side of the car, open the door.

My whole life is hinging on the successful removal of this dog from the car, but I cannot allow him to touch the pile of shit. I cannot fail! I grab his leash and try to pull him toward me, but because the dog is fucking idiotic, he of course flails, steps in the poop and SLIDES ACROSS THE SEAT, dragging the pile of crap across my entire seat and his body. As he jumps out of the car he brushes against me and drags the back of the leash across the morass of excrement.

So there I am, dog shit on my arm, my shirt, my hand. A puppy hopping around psychotically, covered in shit. Holding a leash covered in shit. Staring in awe and wonder and shock at the most enormous pile of dog diarrhea I’ve ever seen, covering the better part of the back seat of the only car we have – the one we need to DRIVE IN and SIT IN.

And I’m stunned. I’m paralyzed. There is no way out. I’m only in survival mode now.  I’m trying to move the dog away from me. He’s jumping on me. Georgia’s yelling. I’m holding the leash out. I have no idea what to do. There is no solution. If I put the fucking dog back in the car we have more shit in the car. But I have to get this off of me and I have to clean my seat.

FYI, there is something infinitely disturbing about being covered in animal excrement.

I hear a noise. I look down. Laser is vomiting. You think I’m kidding? NO. NO I’M NOT. Evidently he ate half of a bully stick, WHOLE. He ralphs ALL OVER THE GROUND NEXT TO ME and almost immediately begins eating it.

I pull him away. He pukes again. Tries to eat it. And I want to die.

So yes, that’s right people. I was standing in the Safeway parking lot covered in dog diarrhea with vomit at my feet and a shit-covered dog attacking me, next to a car doused in crap. And I was alone.

And this, my friends, is my life. Two people asked me if I needed help. I said “um, yes. I need you take this dog and my life. Right now.”

All I could do was stand there and wait for help. I waited for at least 10 minutes in that condition, while people walked by, glanced at me, the dog, the vomit, heard the toddler screaming.

[I wonder how Snooki would have handled that situation.]

Finally Mac came out, horrified of course, bought upholstery cleaner and rags and disinfectant wipes. He held back the dog, tried to clean him, while I cleaned myself and scrubbed dog shit off my seat for AN ENTIRE HOUR.

Now, perhaps our teenaged wonder may read this story and think “Ah, that’s got nothing to do with motherhood. That dumb broad got herself into that trouble, buying a puppy and going on trips and shit.”

But to that I declare: IT IS THE FAULT OF MOTHERHOOD. Why? I’ll tell you why.

Step 1: Have a kid.

Step 2: Have another kid. Maybe another, to give the first kid siblings.

Step 3: Raise them for awhile.

Step 4: Begin doing things that families do, such as buy a fucking Labrador.

Step 5: Stand in vomit piles in a parking lot while covered in dog shit next to your desecrated vehicle.

You see? One thing leads to the next. And what’s the first step? Have a kid.

The jump from kid to dog shit is such a tiny one. And even if you never get a dog, kiddo, there will be excrement in your life and you will be covered in it. Absolutely more than once.

Are you gettin’ that? SHIT. On your skinny jeans.

And that, my friends, is why you don’t want to get pregnant as a teenager…because nobody looks cool doused in dog crap. Or kid crap, for that matter. And once that kid comes, there ain’t no going back.

It’s crap for you, baby.

That’s your future.

Choose wisely.

I’m here. Waiting. To shit on you.

So you know how the kids keep writing those “awkward moment” cards, and you see them on Pinterest all the time – they seem to materialize out of nowhere and yet, there they are. Repeatedly. Yeah, well, I had an awkward moment recently and I’d like to share it with you.

To do so, I made an “awkward moment” ecard because I’m hip and cool (stop laughing) and all the cool kids are doing it. No really. Stop fucking laughing.

Yes, indeed. That is an awkward moment, and it happened to me recently.

My daughter, Ava, is 10, and she’s an amazing kid (right. as if I would have said something different) – very, very bright, witty, driven, sensitive and thoughtful – but she has a temper. Oh holy shit it’s a big one. Sometimes, when the stars are aligned just perfectly (or something), she loses her shit at her brother. She gets in his face and screams. She’s terribly mean, fuming with all kinds of rage in her voice “WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU?!!”

And I get upset when she does it. She alarms me. The look in her eye is shocking, the rage in her voice disturbing. The other day she did it. I watched her tower in fury and her brother shrink into himself and I opened my mouth to stop her, but as the words were coming out…”Ava, why are you talking to your brother that way? Why are you acting like that?”…a blinking neon banner ran across my mind, the answer to my very own question: Because you, you fucktard, YOU act like that. She learned that from YOU.

And I realized I was punishing my child for acting exactly like me.

It was not a pretty moment.

You know there are things I do as a mother that fall into the “haha I’m a bad mother let’s all laugh” category. Like feeding them toast for breakfast 3 days in a row because I can’t get my act together to make real food. You know, no big deal kind of things.

But then there are bad mother moments that I’d rather not talk about it. The real shit. The seedy dark underbelly. MY OWN PERSONAL, SERIOUS FLAW AS A MOTHER AND HUMAN. (again with the all caps. why can’t I stop?)

And for me, it’s losing my temper.

Sometimes I raise my voice. Yeah whatever who doesn’t. But sometimes, oh sometimes, I lose it. I simply explode. I get in their faces and yell. And you know what I’ve said?

“What’s wrong with you?!!!!!”

I see their faces and I want to die. The fear in their eyes. The sadness in their shoulders. And I cave into myself as I’m doing it, trying to make it their fault, screaming while simultaneously totally aware that I am acting horribly but I can’t stop. Because I’m seeing red. I’ve crossed the line.

And when it’s over, I can’t stand the idea of myself.

Because I know I am the problem. It is not them. And it never has been. In those moments I use my power as a mother to bully them, because I’m bigger and stronger and louder and I think I have some right to dominate – to GET MY WAY – and I don’t mean to lose my shit…I do not believe this is an effective parenting method – this is not the person I want to be – but sometimes people I’m just so tired. And I repeatedly fail to take care of myself. I find myself tired and hungry and running late and headaches and noise and it all builds, builds, builds until. Something. Clicks.

Boom.

And it isn’t funny at all.

 I walk away and breathe and I know I’ve blown it. I really fucked up.

I want to crawl in a hole. I cry. Invariably. I want to take them in my arms and beg them to forgive me.

But I don’t beg. I gather myself and I walk back and apologize for my poor behavior just like I would any person who I’ve wronged. I own my shit. I tell them I’m human. I tell them I lose my temper too, and I’m learning patience, just like them. And maybe we can work together on this stuff, both of us, all of us, trying to be better.

But I am the adult and should know better. And you are a wonderful child and this isn’t your fault and if I could figure out how to never do that shit again, my God I would so, so please, please hang with me little one, as I navigate this strange world of motherhood — where the stakes are so high and the guidance so scarce.

And I wonder what the hell is wrong with me.

Two days later I open Facebook and read a post from Peggy O’Mara of Mothering magazine that reads “The way we talk to our children becomes their inner voice” and it becomes clear to me that mothers don’t do what I do. Mothers read things like that and they are filled with inspiration – they take that information and transform it into the elusive ability to only speak to their children in hushed soothing tones…good, wholesome words of support, to become a solid inner voice.

Me? I read things like this and think are you fucking kidding me? If this is true my kids are finished. Don’t put this crap on me. Don’t tell me I BECOME THE VOICE IN MY CHILD’S HEAD. I can’t be all there is! I can’t!

But if she’s right, if my poorest moments are the loudest voices in their head, if they sit in school and wonder “what’s wrong with me” because their mother said it a few times…if that’s true, well I’m going to give them the rest of the story, the other half: Your mother is a human being who is doing the best she can and loves you with every fiber of her imperfect being and so that voice, that voice that yells, it is only ONE voice. There is another. There will always be another. There is the world and god and there are grandmothers and teachers and friends and there is that mother who would lay down her life for you.

[Maybe while yelling, but still.]

The other day I called Ava after treating her poorly. At the end of our conversation I said “Ava, you are a great kid” and I said it with tears in my eyes and a cracked voice and heart.

She responded with words so full of love it took my breath away. Without hesitation, without affectation, she said confidently “And you are a great mother.”

I can only go forward. Each day, one foot in front of the other.

Moving toward becoming the person my kids already think I am.

I used to stop by blogs like SouleMama. I would gaze at the beautiful pictures of gorgeous kids in handmade clothing doing soul-nourishing activities. I ogled at the gardens and hills and trees and lakes. My jaw fell in wonder at the knitted creations and felted little dolls, the gorgeous linens, wooden push toys and fireside gatherings…comforted by the earthy hue of their existence…all these beautiful people doing beautiful things in beautiful places. It all just seemed so mellow, so wholesome and good. like soul food in blog form. And for a moment, while reading, I’d think “Maybe I could do that, too.”

But then one day I read this post, and I haven’t gone back, because I can’t take it. It’s like a mirror to my own parenting deficiencies. Even though SouleMama specifically states that her blog is just a PIECE of her life, and there’s “raised voices” and messes in her house, I don’t believe it because I don’t see it. It’s my problem. Not hers. I mean that. If she pulls off the shit she seems to pull off, mad respect.

As the classic line goes…”It’s me. Not you.”

Only in this case, it’s actually true.

Here was the deal-breaker for me…

“On a recent day in December, on a day much like any other day this year, I watched as Calvin rose earlier than anyone else in the house to take care of his chickens. He opened the coop, changed the water, freshened the food, brought them scraps, and gave the bedding a stir. Coming back in, with his littlest brother just toddling into the kitchen, Calvin made them both breakfast. There was some reading after that in front of the fire, and a game of chess with his other brother. At midday, he volunteered to help his Papa   butcher the remaining turkeys, taking breaks here and there to work in his treehouse, and target practice on a bale of hay with his handmade bow and arrow. As evening neared, we left the house…stopping first at the local natural foods store where he sells his eggs. Proceeding into the city, my little guy joined his friends backstage and donned his black tights, ballet slippers and stage makeup and danced his way onto the stage.

In between those moments, I am certain that he also held the baby while I took a shower, likely knit a row or two on his scarf, probably ‘polished’ his Converse (yes, really), may have made his little sister an orange fleece hat, and definitely listened to some hip-hop.” (www.soulemama.com/soulemama/2012/01/a-day-in-the-life.html?cid=6a00d8341c4ea853ef0162ffffffad970d)

And henceforth, in my head, every time somebody mentions SouleMama I think to myself…JOKINGLY, sarcastically, just for funsies…”You mean, Soule-Crushing Mama?”

Cause I read those lines and my mind goes like this:

Wait hold up. Your child got up by himself to do chores, cooked his sibling breakfast, volunteered to work, all by noon? He then played with a homemade bow and arrow, sold “his eggs” at a “local natural food store,” did ballet, built a treehouse, all while intermittently holding a baby, knitting, polishing his shoes and MAKING A FUCKING HAT?

And he did this in ONE DAY? And this is a day “like any other day?”

Holy mother of God I am doing something seriously WRONG.

Soule-Crushing.

Where’s the yelling? Where’s the cajoling? Where’s the mayhem? Where’s the bickering, exhaustion, whining?

I mean the sheer LOGISTICS of my life negate any possibility for a day like that one.

Are my kids the only ones acting like hyenas? Are my kids the only ones who chuck themselves on the floor in existential anguish when approached with the prospect of house work?

Where are the bad attitudes, the intermittent apathy, the “kids, please, just stop talking for ONE MINUTE because mom’s about to lose her shit” moments? Where are the temper tantrums, the messes, the screaming-matches? What about racing out the door, late one more time, and the baby takes a dump and you want to weep and the older kid won’t stop asking complex questions and the middle kid STILL doesn’t have his shoes on…?

Soule-crushing.

So I conclude “Either those women are super-powered, or they’re lying, or I’m so deficient it’s ridiculous and my kids are horribly behaved and I’m an even worse mother than formerly thought.”

You see the only part of that day I can even remotely relate to is the killing turkeys part. My husband does that. He’s a butcher. On his family’s ranch. However, I can promise you people, my kids sure as shit aren’t volunteering to help work out there. In fact, they’d pretty much rather recite lines out of 17th-century metaphysical poetry. I mean it’s hard work, it smells like ass, and it’s generally either freezing or like an oven.

When I ask Ava to cook for the younger kids she acts like I just asked her to donate her hair.

We have all kinds of wool we could felt. It’s sitting on a shelf in the craft closet, where it’s remained for the past two years.

We knit. Bi-annually.

The other day I asked the kids to help me plant some flowers in the front yard. Ava responds “you mean, so we can NOT water them and they can die like all the other ones and we can do it again in 3 months?”

Well, yes, smartass, that’s exactly what I mean.

Even the 10-year old gets it.

And this, my friends, is the best I got, and it sure isn’t much – a fact that’s compounded in my brain when I read about a “day like any other” that strikes me as some sort of homemaking ethereal existence of joy.

And she’s like “It ain’t no thang.”

Now don’t misunderstand me. Not only do I have nothing against women like SouleMama, I’m so freaking JEALOUS I COULD CRY.  I support the over-arching values being conveyed by bloggers like that. I admire their work, their devotion and the ethics they reinforce. I admire their LIVES. As she says, they’re only sharing a part of their lives – not the whole story.

But there’s this whiny child in me….”I want my life to be that beautiful!!” I want my kids to wake up knitting shit for the baby and crafting archery tools out of native woods. I want to spin yarn and make jam from berries I’ve grown, sew bonnets out of organic cotton and sell eggs at local stores. That shit is wonderful. It’s beautiful. It’s GOOD.

But the reality of my life is that I live in a small, unimpressive agricultural town in a small, totally unattractive 1970s house next to a dude who drinks Budweiser in his garage all day, smoking Marlboro Reds and doing drunk yardwork. On the other side of me is some gathering of individuals who enjoy marijuana, screaming at their dogs and bad country music. I work. My husband works. All the time. And yet, WE DON’T HAVE ANY FUCKING MONEY for Amish pushcarts. Everybody on my street works, all day. My kitchen floor is linoleum. You can hear the freeway from my front yard.

But I TRY, people, I TRY. We got rid of our T.V. We don’t eat many processed foods. Almost all our meat is raised and killed by my husband, I hate American consumerism, we read lots of books, I breastfeed and cosleep and use cloth diapers (um, along with the “other kind”)…I try to engage my kids in imaginative play…I take them outdoors, camping, swimming…but check it out:

I recently came home to a note from Mac, regarding our dogs. It read “Laser needs to poop. Odie is constipated.”

BEAUTIFUL.

You see, no matter what I do, my life just isn’t that beautiful. No matter how hard I try, it just isn’t aesthetically pleasing. It isn’t calm, wholesome or carefully crafted in gorgeous wood. It’s loud, messy, stinky and a little frenzied. It’s plastic and metal and occasionally, it’s frozen food. It’s a few successes and glorious days scattered among hours of messiness and rushing and struggling and flailing.

Those are the rhythms of my fucking day. Not exactly what the Waldorf dude had in mind, I don’t think.

Not because I love it that way, but because it just is. I read those blogs and I think “We should sell everything we own and move to Vermont and grow lavender.” But then I remember that this is where my people are, and I can’t leave my family, and my whole life is here. So this is it for me, for now.

Plus, we can’t afford a big old farm house in the country. Shit, we can’t afford to move anywhere. We can’t afford all wooden toys. And somehow, I can’t get my act together to even do ONE crafty project, let alone 6 in one day. And my children are pretty much always bickering and one day rushes into the next and I’m excited if I get two rooms clean or set up a little play room, or clean bags of crap toys out my house, or turn on some Jimi Hendrix while I clean, so my kids get cultured.

Basically, the women on these blogs are actually DOING the shit I pin on Pinterest and dream about.

So I don’t read that stuff anymore. Because even though it makes my heart smile, and I appreciate it, I just have to accept that my life isn’t that life, no matter how many Waldorf playstands I “pin.”

I am not talking shit about them.

I’m talking shit about me. About the fact that I can’t take it. About the fact that I can’t read those things and believe myself when I say “Janelle, it’s a BLOG. Nobody’s THAT PERFECT.” But they seem that perfect. They seem that capable. Their kids seem that good. All I see is pretty shit.

And clearly, my insecurities are just too big to expose myself to so much beauty. I should find it inspiring. But honestly, you know what I find inspiring? Going over to my lovely friend Kristi’s house, a Montessori teacher, and seeing the way she has crafted these simple, wonderful play spaces for her toddler, out of $10.00 Ikea items.

Because that, my friends, is within my reach.

And I like to stay within my reach. Well, at least close.

And I guess in the end, we do what we can do and appreciate our small, slightly pathetic attempts to nourish our souls, and those of our children.

Right where we are.

So that whole Push Present post, along with the brilliant comment by Stephanie over at Momma Be Thy Name (if you aren’t reading her, you should), got me thinking about “playdate calling cards.” So of course, like any sane human, I Googled that shit. I know, I’m a thinker.

I found out all sorts of interesting things. Not really. To be honest, it’s a rather insipid topic (which fully explains why I’m writing about it, right?).

I pretty much only learned that they go by multiple names: “mommy calling cards,” “mommy playdate cards,” and, for those into the whole brevity thing, “mommy cards.”

First of all, don’t call me “mommy.” I thought we’ve been over this.

Secondly, do these things exist because it’s too difficult to put somebody’s number in your fucking cell phone? Or is it just to be cute, even, perhaps, what I might call Excessively Cute? and you know how I feel about The Excessively Cute.

These are deep questions. Can’t be answered at one sitting.

However, while contemplating this inane topic, I realized that I could perhaps get behind the whole “mommy card” thing, were they not called “mommy cards,” not quite so damn cute, and didn’t imply that my ENTIRE IDENTITY can be conveyed by the words “mommy to Ava, Rocket and Georgia!”

So basically I pretty much can’t get behind them. Or I could, if they were recast into some totally inappropriate, renegade version, you know, something we might call “Cards to weed out the women who wouldn’t want to hang out with me or my offspring anyway.”

Not particularly catchy.

But alas, all the “mommy cards” I saw said variations of the aforementioned statement “mommy to ____” followed up with contact information. Some of them said “Let’s have a playdate!” at the top.

Now these simply will not work for me, so I figured I’d make a few that would.

I could hand these to women who chat with me at the park, seeing the in-public, well-behaved (more or less), not-saying-“fuck” version of me. [I try not to say the F word around other people’s children. Or my own, though that’s always a bit sketchy. Let’s change the subject.] And then, they would have fair warning that I am THAT type of mother with THOSE types of children…and then, she can run.

FYI, I don’t drink anymore, on account of the last one being TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY THE WAY I USED TO ROLL.

Sorry for the all caps. It’s a disease.

You know, now that I really think about it, I think I really, really like the idea of these things.

They are just so damn versatile. Don’t you think?

But seriously. Stop calling me “mommy.”

xo

What the hell happened up there with all that alliteration? How cute.

Anyway, let’s talk about “push presents.”

Unclear on the concept? Doubting the little voice in your head whispering the likely definition? Can’t quite grasp the implications? Well, just for funsies, let’s borrow Wikipedia’s definition (this is a BLOG, after all, not some academic research paper)… “A push present (also known as a ‘push gift’ or ‘baby bauble’) is a present a new father gives a new mother when she gives birth to their child.”

Setting aside all criticism of the heteronormativity being displayed in the aforementioned definition, let me just say that if I hear the words “baby bauble” ever again I’m going to vomit on my keyboard without restraint.

Anyway, before I looked it up – you know, delved deep into investigative journalism for the sake of this profound post – I suspected I would hate the idea of a “push present.” Just call it a gut feeling. However, after reading the following drivel from “Linda Murray,” this gut feeling materialized into a concrete disdain for the entire concept of “push present,” and the distinct awareness that I would punch my husband in the nuts if he attempted to give me one.

I mean seriously, if THIS is what it is, I don’t want anything to do with it:

“According to Linda Murray, the executive editor of BabyCenter.com, ‘It’s more and more an expectation of moms these days that they deserve something for bearing the burden for nine months, getting sick, ruining their body. The guilt really gets piled on.’ Other sources trace the development of the present to the increased assertiveness of women, allowing them to ask for a present more directly, or the increased involvement of the men in pregnancy, making them more informed of the pain and difficulties of pregnancy and labor.”

OH HOLY MOTHER OF GOD do you really think some GIFT is going to make up for the fact that I now pee on myself when I sneeze, my tits kick it near my belly, and my stomach  bulges like an overflowing cupcake? (Also, Linda Bite Me Murray, “ruining their body?” REALLY? Screw you.)

Oh, honey, yes, I just endured morning sickness, a pin-sized bladder, waddling and back pain for nine months, culminating in the most excruciating few hours of my life, during which time I rallied the strength of 10,000 women to push a gigantic baby out of a barely-participating vagina – I shit on a table, got hemorrhoids and rips in inhumane places, and I now face cracked nipples, dripping breastmilk, emotional turmoil, no sleep and a lifetime of guilt and responsibility [having just become somebody’s MOTHER]… but that white gold ring you got me? Oh, yes. That makes up for it. I now see how appreciated I am. I see that you totally “get it,” sweet cheeks. Thank GOODNESS I’m appreciated.

What do they think we’re fucking stupid?

On what planet does the purchasing of a trinket or furniture or jewelry indicate a man’s “involvement in pregnancy” or make them “more informed of the pain and difficulties of pregnancy and labor?”

You want to show me you care? You want to give me a “push present?” Here. How about one of these:

Love me. Go to work. Don’t cheat. Wash the fucking dishes. Take the newborn OUT OF THE HOUSE so I can actually sleep (cause the living room ain’t cuttin’ it sunshine). Understand that I need my mother more than I need you right now. Realize I won’t have sex with you for at least 2 months and possible 6 more after that. Let my friends come over. Don’t ask me what I “did all day.” Hold your baby. Wear your baby. Learn to put him to sleep. Stand by my side.

Love your child. Be a father. Sit with me for a moment and gaze at this perfect creation.

Spend the rest of your life as my partner and friend and lover, raising this little being we just created.

How’s that for a damn push present?

Parents.com suggests some “amazing” gifts for women who “rocked Labor & Delivery,” [and they suggest we should “start dropping hints” to our “hubs” – What is wrong with these people?!] such as rings with the kid’s birthstone, necklaces, a fancy rocking arm chair, a family vacation, a big screen TV, and, my personal favorite: PLAYDATE CALLING CARDS.

I can’t even inch near the topic of “playdate calling cards.” Not enough time.

As often happens, I believe I can best summarize my feelings about receiving one of these items as a “push present” with a graph, or two.

First of all, it appears that a push present is intended to show the mother what a badass she is, to congratulate her on a job well done. Well, here’s my thought on that:

And really, here’s the bottom line: there’s nothing wrong with buying somebody a gift. I get that. HOWEVER, the reality of the situation, for me, is as follows: I don’t care what my husband were to buy me, it would not mean shit next to the newborn baby I am holding in my arms.

I made a pie chart to demonstrate.

You feel me here? I almost find it demeaning…as if some item, some material good, some PURCHASE could “thank me” for carrying and birthing a human being, for becoming a mother, for the courage and strength and power contained in a woman giving birth, could recognize the sacrifice I have made and will make for the rest of my life…and, perhaps most offensively, that this item would do so more powerfully than the child herself.

So yeah. For now, I’ll just stick with the baby, as the greatest fucking “baby bauble” in the world.

wretch.