My Maternal Instinct

I keep telling other people (and myself) that I'd like to have children one day.  Of course, this desire tends to be dependent upon how much recent interaction that I've had with children.  There's nothing like a screaming baby in a restaurant or grocery store to make one's ovaries seize up.

Honestly, I haven't spent a lot of time around kids of any age and the idea that I am able to (potentially) reproduce without any sort of license or supervising body is really kinda scary.  I will have absolutely no idea what I'm doing, either during or after the pregnancy. I mean, I know you have to get diapers and a crib and stop drinking and smoking about halfway through, but then what? It'd be really nice if, after the baby and before the placenta, an instruction manual came down the old lady pipes.  Actually, no.  The manual should come out first.

I guess I'm worried that I don't really have much of a maternal instinct or that it is minimal, like the plop-out-the-kid-and-be-on-my-merry-way kind of minimal.   Any fool can lie on a gurney doped up on great drugs and have a c-section (hopefully, this can be done by request), but it takes a special person to be truly nurturing.  Last time I checked "every man for himself" doesn't really apply to people that just vacated a womb.

Some people are great with kids right out of the gate. And then there's people like me.  It's not that I don't like kids. I just don't know what to do with them. I can picture myself in the delivery room holding up my newborn son or daughter  like a used Kleenex wondering what to do next.  I mean, after you chew through the umbilical cord, what else is there?

I suppose it's not really a far stretch to imagine my husband or baby daddy (I'm getting older, the time to be picky about that is nigh to an end) being summoned all over the city to collect an errant child because I accidentally left him or her somewhere.  After all, it's pretty easy to drop your baby at the coat check and forget to pick it up on the way out.  Then once they start walking it becomes even harder to keep track of them.  One of those kid leashes will definitely be in order.  I'm certain that I will have great piece of mind knowing my child is safely tied  to the stop sign outside while I'm in Starbucks getting my latte.

Then there are so many  ways that you can unconsciously screw  up a kid.  Having a baby is like buying a used car: you really have no idea what you're getting into until its too late.  One day your baby daddy is wheeling you out of the hospital with a sweet little bundle of joy, then the next thing you know, you're on the news with your face blurred out pleading with him or her to turn themselves in.

Ok, so most people don't fuck up that badly, but even just realizing your kid is an asshole has to be a bit sobering.  Not that you love them any less (probably), but it has to make you call into question everything you've ever done.  Did you not hug them enough?    Were you too tough?  Should you have been more tough? Or did they just inherit the asshole gene from your significant other's side of the family?

Luckily, none of these are questions that I'll have to contend with any time soon.  It's a good thing, though. I have absolutely no where to put a baby cage right now.