So, You Want to Be a Mother!

Or maybe it snuck up on you.  How would I know?

Since it's almost Mother's Day and I received some very slight encouragement from my friends, I decided that I would write about another one of my occasional hobbies, parenting.   My son is about to graduate high school, and I feel a sense of accomplishment and pride in the fact that I have reared him nearly to legal adulthood without him either going to jail or becoming a Republican.  Since I know that any new or incipient parents with a lick of sense are flailing about in a hysterical panic wondering how they are going to get through this...and if you haven't reached that stage yet, dearie, you will....I will share some of my tips and secrets right here on the Internet for the benefit and edification of all.

Photographic evidence that I know what I am talking about. Note hippietastic skirt, homemade Plains-style choker and general air of blissful, youthful ignorance. Also not-yet-freakishly-ginormous belly.

Let's start at the beginning, shall we?

Oopsie, I'm Pregnant!

Perhaps you planned, waited, prayed, and, er, tried very hard for this day.  Or perhaps you woke up one day feeling a little weird and went on a mildly embarrassing shopping trip to the drug store.  Either way, you should realize that you have no idea what you're getting into and that there are very sound evolutionary reasons for that.  

To begin with, eat whatever the hell you want. 

I mean...sure you should probably avoid alcohol, though the latest latest research suggests that small amounts are not going to do you or your baby any harm, so don't freak right out if you drank a beer the day before you learned you were pregnant.  Follow your doctor's advice, etc. etc.  But the reality is that during the first trimester, pregnant women come in two flavors:  completely, unbelievably, ravenously hungry, and barf-o-rama.  What this means in practical terms is that either you are going to eat whatever is available, including whatever you see in your refrigerator, your pantry, your friend's refrigerator, on the sample tray at the grocery store, on the plates of strangers in restaurants who look like they aren't really that hungry...or you are not going to be able to hold any kind of food down except some exceedingly weirdo combination of very bland nothingness...tofu cubes and soda crackers, or snowflake-shaped ice cubes and Sprite.  Either way, it isn't really going to matter what it says on those lists of healthy foods and recommended preggo diets. You aren't going to follow them.  Plus...

Fun fact #1:  Your sense of smell is about to become your first Mom-related super-power.

Pregnant women are about a bazillion times more able to detect spoilage and toxicity in food than a normal person.  This is because some substances which would merely cause discomfort or illness in an adult will cause serious damage to a developing embryo.  In a very few cases, things that we normally eat with no problems whatsoever go on the OH HELL NO list.  At any rate, your whole system goes on high alert for anything potentially threatening, at least anything potentially threatening that our ancestors a few hundred thousand years ago were likely to encounter.  This reaction kicks in so fast that revulsion for foods they previously enjoyed is often the first tip-off some women have that they are in fact pregnant.  Viva la evolucion!

The urge to stab people who are smoking anywhere near you or wearing too much perfume is just a bonus, really.  Considering how weird people are about pregnant women. if you are far enough along you might even get away with it.  Which leads us to...

People are freaking weird about pregnant women.

They either want to scrunch you up in a big fluffy rainbow of kitties and puppies and bunnies and pastel icing, or they are terrified of you.  Possibly both.  Sometimes they resent you.  They want to touch your belly.  They offer you unsolicited advice, including opinions about how you could have not become pregnant and where you should send your as-yet-unborn child to college, when they haven't even seen his or her SAT scores.  They edge away from you or treat you with exaggerated, slightly demented, patronizing courtesy.

And that's just strangers.  The people closest to you are likely to be either hilariously, ecstatically happy or freaking out.  Usually both.

All of that can be very irritating.  My best advice to you is to realize that people are frail creatures who don't really like reminders that they are physical beings with a start date (and by implication, an end date). It tends to throw them off-kilter.  Also, everyone on the whole entire planet has Mommy issues, and you tweak them by your very presence.  Try to maintain an attitude of serenity about it all, and also realize that if you are just a little bit ruthless you can turn it to your advantage.  Enjoy it while it lasts, because no human is more invisible or disdained than the mother of a toddler.  People like reminders that they too were once imperfect little barbarians with dirt and snot all over them even less.


Fun fact #2:  Stretch marks are forever.

I still have mine, seventeen years later.  Just deal with it.   You can rub some shea butter on your belly and, er, lower abdomen, but it will only delay the inevitable.  You are about to become the hugest giantest walking beach ball that has ever been.  Except for every other pregnant woman who has ever lived.  Just roll with it.  Um, not literally, because that will be very uncomfortable.   Eventually, you are going to be able to use your belly as a convenient horizontal surface:


Your feet are likely to grow half a size as well, permanently, so don't buy any really expensive shoes until after your baby is born.  At which point you will not be able to afford them.

The good news is, your tits will also gain a lot of volume temporarily and at least some of the effect will be permanent.  Your ass will also get bigger, which may be good or bad news, depending. 

Basically, your body is about to go through a transformation and while you will not always be a freak of nature, it will never be quite the same.  This is not a bad thing, though it's definitely a little unnerving at times.



You might as well have fun with it.  Also, long before your belly gets this big...along about the fifth month for a first pregnancy...you are going to have a weirdest experience of your life, which is when you realize there's a tiny little being moving around in there.

Congratulations, you are now a host for an alien life form!

Except it's related to you.  (Isn't being a mammal fun?)  And it will not, I am almost 100% sure, pop out of your chest.  It's possible that when you contemplate what it will pop out of, you may wish that it would. 


At some point, that tiny barely perceptible flutter that is so cute and groovy and miracle-of-life will turn into very noticeable rolling around.  And kicking. And thumping. There is nothing quite like losing your breath mid-word because someone has punched your diaphragm.  From the inside. Let us not discuss what happens when the little freeloader kicks your bladder.

You should also know that fetuses have sleeping and waking cycles in the womb.  Which will not, I repeat NOT, coincide with yours.  Guess who keeps who up?  This is of course practice for later, and to toughen you up.  The first three or four months after the child is born is one long sleep-deprivation experiment.

Many mothers give their unborn children nicknames.  My son's pre-birth name was "Wiggles."  He earned it, with a single-minded dedication awe-inspiring in one so young and not even breathing yet.

There is such a thing as a "nesting instinct."

This is the cute, Victorianesque phrase, evocative of little birdies and interior decoration with feathers, that  we use to refer to the fact that at some point along about the beginning of the second trimester (after you quit barfing.  If you do quit barfing) you are going to look around at your house, neighborhood, country and planet and say, in emphatic tones and with a glint of determination in your eye,  "This will not do at all."

What you do next is largely determined by your temperament, inclinations, and what resources fate has put at your disposal.  Some women make booties.  I built a counter and...stuff.  Anne Bonney busted out of prison.*

Just go with it, for as long as the impulse lasts, but try to break your projects down into small, manageable chunks and don't let them get too far-reaching.  That is because at some point, just as suddenly, you are going to decide that you'd rather take a nap every day.  You are also going to reach a point (as I mentioned) where it is hard to reach around or see over your own belly.  

My suggestion for any non-pregnant persons reading this is that your best bet is to just go along with whatever Preggo has in mind.  At the very least, get out of her way.  There is no stopping her, so do not attempt it.  You will get hurt.

Advice for expectant fathers, non-pregnant-girl-partners, and concerned friends: 

I realize most of this is aimed at the pregnant mother.  There is a reason for that, which is that for now, she is the star of this show.  Remember, couvade isn't cute.  Also, rest assured that the narcissism, obsessiveness, hysteria, sudden mood swings, and weird changes will subside some time after the baby is born.  A year or two at most...well, that really depends on how long you leave her alone with a toddler.  If it persists much beyond the child's entrance to middle school you should consider the idea that perhaps that isn't a mood swing, that's her personality, and adjust accordingly.

Possible future topics:   why you don't need to buy a bunch of baby crap, toddlers are the devil, middle-school Machiavellis, and other stuff as it occurs to me.

*This may or may not actually be true.  However, it is a fact that she and fellow pirate Mary Read both "pled their bellies," ie claimed to be pregnant which meant they would get a stay of execution.  Mary Read died of a fever.  Bonney was not executed, and nobody seems to be sure exactly what happened to her.  But she was never hung for piracy. I draw my own conclusions.  

Feline Philosophy, Anarchy, and Art

"Of all God's creatures there is only one that cannot be made the slave of the lash. That one is the cat. If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve man, but it would deteriorate the cat." - Mark Twain

A side-effect of hanging around Occupy is that one winds up having to explain patiently to people that having a penchant for breaking things and wearing clothes you found on the bargain rack at Hot Topic does not make you an anarchist.  Sometimes you have to explain that to people who call themselves anarchists.  I don't look like I know anything about it, apparently.  I am middle-aged, chose to accord punk a decent burial rather than take up necrophilia,  and have a job, more or less, as an educator.   I vote, among my other peculiar habits, and my clothing comes in other colors than black.  That's all right; I reject the notion that political and philosophical ideas require membership in a subculture.  I also reject the idea that it requires a certain set of lifestyle choices, ideological catechisms, or a reading list.  Although I do habitually think about the systemic consequences of my personal decisions and I love a reading list, those are voluntary choices on my part.  (See what I did there?)  In other words....don't tell me what to do.

Let's start with a fundamental attitude.  Deep down in my bones, I believe that all power must justify itself to those it would exert influence over, rather than the other way around.  The power to pass laws or enforce them, to allocate resources or use them up, is always conditional and open to question; no other state of affairs is acceptable, or even possible except through manipulation, coercion and failure of the imagination.  When you put it that way, it sounds strangely like the Declaration of Independence ("....Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed")  and therefore ought to have the stamp of the hoariest true-blue American sentiment about it.  And yet in practice that fundamental world-view tends to bother people.  I have been told more than once in indignant tones that I have no respect for authority; I can only agree cheerfully, which seems to upset people even more.  I do not have respect for authority.  I barely recognize authority as a concept, except in the specific narrow academic sense of an authoritative source (and I'm well aware of how subject to debate that is). My compliance is never to be assumed, and my respect beyond that which I accord to all living beings as a matter of fundamental ethics has to be earned.  I do respect integrity, knowledge and logical sense, and will amiably ask that they be demonstrated before I put my full trust in a person or institution; I will less amiably point out when they have been breached.  This makes me a rebel, apparently, and very upsetting. 

Really, I'm no different from a cat, except that I talk more.  Cats are inherently anti-authoritarian.

So are artists, a species of which I am a member, cultivar writer.   While it's true you will occasionally find an artist espousing some authoritarian philosophy or another, they always mean it for other people.  (Nobody said an artist can't be a hypocrite.  We are like other mortals that way).  I never met a creative person though who took authority seriously as applied to herself.  That is because real art requires freedom and is governed by constraints the artist understands to be arbitrary even when she believes in them passionately, with the same total conviction that a six year old will lend to the rules of a game she and her friends just made up on the spot.  Even reality is bendable in spots.

Don't get the idea that just because I think rules are the product of fallible human minds it means I also think there shouldn't be any.  That kind of person always believes that there's such a thing as ultimate truth in human affairs, and that he or she knows what it is.  What I do think is that, acknowledging that rules are often arbitrary (a word with roots in the concept of rendering judgment), they are also functional in that they provide a container, a vessel for human interactions.  They can be useful, but they must also be subject to criticism and revision on the basis of how functional they really are, and that extends to all levels, the philosophical, the social, and the practical; local, national, and global.  This is also the business of the philosophical or theoretical arms of social justice movements:  feminism, anti-racism, queer activism, disabilities activism, etc.  That is not a coincidence.  As tiresome as that can sometimes be....like a four year old asking constantly "why? why? why do we do things this way?  why don't we do them another way?" it is essential.  All true and valuable change begins with a question.

Question authority.

We live in interesting times

I have been volunteering for Occupy Atlanta a lot lately, which means my life has been very exciting.  That is, I have been on the radio, on TV, wrote an op-ed for Creative Loafing which caused some poor Randroid such distress that he hunted down my UGA e-mail in order to tell me how wrong I was, got quoted by the New York Times, have been hobnobbing with politicians, rappers, homeless people, Marxists, anarchists, and Libertarians, and currently have a phone number written on my arm with a Sharpie.  In case I get arrested. I sold a short story and wrote this.

How has your week been?

High Weird With Jesus

I've been waiting to hear back from several publications and a job; today instead I got mail from these folks.

They are, by all accounts, Evangelical mail fraud, complete with fake "testimonies" and a groovy "prayer rug" Jesus who OPENS HIS EYES AS YOU LOOK AT HIM. (He really does!)*

I cannot adequately express how delighted I am with this. I was the kind of child who was very knowledgeable about parapsychology and cryptozoology, and when I was in high school, I had a copy of High Weirdness by Mail by Ivan Stang...a veritable cornucopia of crazy shit I thought was cool. Some of it was more respectable than the rest: I joined the L5 Society as a teenager, and later (after L5 merged with the National Space Institute) the National Space Society . For many years I had an NSS t-shirt. But while I took some of it more seriously than others, I adored all the weirdness equally, from Loompanics to the Erisian Liberation Front. Some people, when presented with the degree of creativity, resilience and occasional confabulation with which human beings face the irreducible problems of existence, the amount of wild-ass inventiveness and sheer effort they put in, feel pity, contempt, or despair. I think it's awesome. Whatever floats your boat down the river of life, buddy.

I discovered, in the process of writing this, that there's now High Weirdness by Web. It is a sad shadow of the print book, since the snarky entries were half the glory; also I don't find the whole SubGenius schtick as funny as I used to....something to do with my ex-husband. But it serves to remind me of things I haven't thought about in a while, along with some new ones I had yet to discover. For example, there's Factsheet5, which reviewed the 'zine** I was Graphics Editor of back in the day. I also used to talk to Kerry Thornley while hanging out in the square in Little Five Points in the 80s. I bought a signed copy of the Principia Discordia from him for $5. The book was last seen at a meeting with my oldest niece, some doughnuts and a plushie Cthulhu, and has subsequently disappeared.

Anyway, so now I have this paper Jesus eye-opening "prayer rug." I think I am going to send it back to them and see what happens.


*It's an optical illusion created by the way the image is drawn. Someone put serious effort into that.
** Planetary Previews Magazine. Many's the tale of madcap adventure I could tell.

In case you didn't know...

Writers are a bunch of freaks.