This Is for All the Unparents Out There

I never pictured myself as a mother. I have pictured myself living alone in big cities, curling up on a couch with a glass of wine and my love, living a small-town life back in Ohio, writing for a magazine in Chicago...all kinds of different lives. But never motherhood.

I'm not someone who really wants to hold your baby. I think kids are funny and fun and babies are cute, but mostly, I'm just interested in talking to adults about Real Things. I want to know about your religious beliefs and how they've hurt and helped you. I want to know how badly your parents screwed up your life. I want to know how difficult parenthood has been for you. I just don't really want to hold your baby.

At the same time, motherhood felt like something inevitable but always in the distant future until one day when I found myself sitting on the bathroom floor and staring at five positive pregnancy tests. It seems there was only a 3-day span from the moment we decided to have a baby until the moment we actually conceived one. I thought it would take longer. I thought when it happened, I'd be ready. I was wrong on both accounts.

But, slowly, something happened to me. I started lying awake at night begging God/Jesus/The Universe/The Powers That Be for a healthy baby, a smart toddler, a kind child. I thought about raising compassionate teenagers and the values that matter to me, that I want to matter to my children.

And suddenly, a deep and life-changing excitement started to take hold of me.

This is a good thing. But it's rocking my world. Who am I as a mother? How do I avoid becoming an anti-vaccinator, or one of those moms who is always testing her kid for food allergies? How do I train a child not to be a brat? What's going to happen to my relationships?

I have a lot of questions, and zero answers. Even the answers other mothers give me don't sound accurate to me...at least not for my personality and particular take on life.

I've started thinking of myself as an "unparent". Someone who is excited to raise a kid, but isn't doing her due diligence to find the right private school just yet. A woman who will probably put her child at the center of almost everything...but not her marriage. A wife who hands a baby off one night a week and says, "I need all the wine with my best friend now." I don't feel anxious and I don't feel scared. I feel like I have no idea what's next, and that has made pregnancy the greatest adventure of all.

Here's to unparenting and this little blog, where I'll keep a record of what's going on in my life.