Friday, April 24, 2009

Adult 2.0 ponders the upgrade

I do not think I am ready to be a mother. Not when I can't talk to my own mother about a misunderstanding over something as simple as my plans for the visit to Seattle I'm starting in about eleven hours without crying. I'm going to blame the baby for my excessive emotionality--that's going to be one great thing about having a kid, someone to blame when Eric isn't around--but I'm vaguely worried now about how I'm going to handle being on the other end of these kinds of scenarios. On the other hand, I've found adulthood to be nothing more than a series of progressively more serious and complicated situations in which you have to make things up as you go along, and maybe parenthood won't be any different. We've been calling it Adult 3.0.

Adult 1.0 was the just-out-of-the-house stage, where things were pretty simple: you cooked and shopped for yourself, got three or four bills every month, maybe had a savings account as well as a checking account. Adult 2.0 was the stepped-up version of a shared household, homeownership, more complicated finances, long-term decisions about career aspirations and where to live. And now we face Adult 3.0: dependents for whom we have to make long-term decisions, even more complicated finances and legal issues, sacrifices and compromises and what I most sincerely hope will be some sort of compensation other than the satisfaction of being able to survive.

2 comments:

Ernie said...

And what she does not tell you is the effect this conversation had on her mother. You have learned so much in communication techniques with your mom that will help with Leo.

Mothers of evil overlords are never in trouble, fathers - well we all know what happens.......

I believe you and Eric will make wonderful parents, maybe a little eccentric - but don't worry, Uncle Bob and I will teach her some of the real world parts :)

Unknown said...

I'm teaching sports!