29FROM THE MOMENT I ANNOUNCED I WAS PREGNANT,
the comments started rolling in:
Hope you’re ready to never sleep again.
All your hair is going to fall out.
Just wait until he’s a toddler.
Just wait until he’s a teenager!
Do you know what an episiotomy is?
They came from friends, from co-workers, from strang-
ers who saw my belly. (OK, the last one was my doctor.)
At i rst they didn’t bother me. But as the months went on,
the comments did too. I’ve always liked kids, but from what
I was hearing, the second you have your own, you i nd out
“the truth”: they drain you, demanding snacks at all hours,
crying all night, breastfeeding too much, not breastfeeding
enough, breaking heirlooms, forcing you to become an ex-
hausted heap of a person who can’t even drink a cup of cof-
fee without a tiny human insisting on watching Blippiwhile
picking their nose and wiping it on your unused diploma.
Was this what was going to happen to me?
For a long time, motherhood was glorii ed. When my
mom was pregnant in the ’80s, it never occurred to her that
it would be hard because nobody talked about the chal-
lenges. She was surprised when we weren’t the perfect chil-
dren she’d imagined, children who slept through the night
and were happy to sit quietly in a playpen until we were 5.
Instead, when my mom took my brother for a preschool in-
terview, he turned on all the outdoor spigots he could i nd
and l ooded the playground.
Now people try to avoid making it seem like it’s all snug-
gly babies and well-behaved toddlers who would never
purposely l ood a Montessori vegetable garden. We i nally
started speaking up about issues that were being ignored,
like postpartum depression. We allowed TV fathers to be
emotional and stopped depicting mothers as rosy-cheeked
June Cleavers. But maybe when it came to talking about
parenthood, we overcorrected. We for-
got to keep sharing the good stuf , in
addition to the bad.I HAD MY SON in May 2020, probably
one of the worst times in history to
have a baby. It could have been worse,
of course—it wasn’t on the Oregon
Trail —but it wasn’t great. For the i rst
few months of his life, we couldn’t see
anyone. We showed him to friends and
family by Zoom or by holding him up
to a window. I wish they could have
held him. I wish they could have held
me. One night when he wouldn’t stop
crying, I drove to a parking lot and
sobbed. I thought, This is exactly what
everyone told me it would be like.
But even as a i rst-time parent of a
pandemic baby, I’ve found there is so
much good. Why didn’t anyone warn
me about the good? I don’t mean good
in the sense that my toddler is easy
(he’s not) or my parenting is perfect
(last night, my son ate 30 tater tots and
nothing else for dinner). But good un-
like anything I knew before becoming a
parent. Sometimes after my son goes to
sleep, I revisit the feeling of being with
him like it’s a drug. I can release endor-
phins just by looking at a photo of him
playing with a dump truck.
Maybe that’s why it’s hard to tell
people about the good. The best mo-
ments of parenting sound mundane
but feel otherworldly: The i rst time
my son heard “Jump in the Line” and
I danced around the room while he
laughed. Cuddling while watching
Cars 3 (again), stroking his hair. Kick-
ing a soccer ball as the sun sets and the
whole world is me and him.
A few nights ago , my toddler went
around and said, “Good night, I love
you!” to all his trucks, our cats, his
dad, and me. He’d never said “I love
you” to me before. My heart felt like
someone had grabbed it inside my rib
cage and squeezed so hard the ven-
tricles were about to burst. I’m glad
we’ve become more honest about par-
enting. But now when my friends are
about to become parents, I try to ex-
plain this: some moments you’ll be
so happy, you’ll practically combust.Huber is a freelance writer and an editor
at McSweeney’sSOCIETY
We should talk more about
the good parts of parenting
BY LUCY HUBER
Sometimes
after my
son goes
to sleep,
I revisit the
feeling of
being with
him like
it’s a drug