Now, don’t get me wrong, I read shit all the time. Even smart shit like Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, even though it seems like it takes me four months to get through a single issue. I watch Rachel Maddow and listen to a couple of podcasts when I remember they exist, but I don’t know how to do trigonometry. And I cannot remember anything from a single history class I’ve ever taken, so unless tenth graders are being tested on BuzzFeed listicles and how to keep track of all the bogus e-mail addresses you’ve created to sign up for multiple thirty-day Tidal trials and ModCloth discount codes, I do not know anything of use to a modern-day child. I can show a kid how to make a satisfying meal out of stale saltines and leftover aloo gobi, but that is basically it. I wasn’t parented past the age of thirteen, and it shows. I once blew a car engine because I had no idea what an oil change was. I didn’t even have a coat last winter, I just doubled up hoodies and wrapped a scarf the size of a tablecloth around my shaved head. IN CHICAGO. I have a lot of what polite people call “life experience,” which is a nice way of saying I possess skills like “can find a café with free Wi-Fi blindfolded” and “able to spot an overdue bill from a glance at the back of the envelope.”
2b. I hate going outside, and talking to people can be excruciating.
I’m depressed, man. Lexapro gave me night terrors, so I stopped taking it and haven’t yet tried an alternative because I value my newfound ability to sleep through the night. I didn’t have outdoor parents, and I’m not all that mad about it. You say “walk in the park,” I hear “runny nose, itchy eyes.” You say “picnic in the grass,” I hear “bugs stinging and birds pooping on me.”
And exactly what am I supposed to do during soccer practice every week? Or during Girl Scouts? Have you ever listened to people with kids talk to other people with kids? It is a strange and confusing language that I don’t ever want to understand. I don’t ever want to listen to two people debating over whether school lunches should be non-GMO. I have absolutely zero opinions on things like that. Also, I would buy my kid a hundred TVs just to get him right on up out of my goddamned face. So many things that people have to do to make good, well-rounded people out of their children are such a hassle for the parent. If she has to learn to play the cello, I have to: buy the cello, find the instructor, and drive her to the lessons. Not to mention the half hour every afternoon I have to subject myself to living in a house WITH A CHILD TERRIBLY PLAYING THE CELLO. And sure, I would probably get a lot of reading done squashed behind the wheel of my sensible midsize crossover vehicle in the parking lot behind the ice-skating rink to avoid gossiping with the other moms about which of our standout left wings will be arrested first for assault, but then I’d be the type of person who was forced to purchase something called a midsize crossover vehicle.
We’re talking a minimum of sixteen years that I would be responsible for taking a young, defenseless creature out into the wild and protecting her from people who say damaging shit like, “Aren’t you a pretty princess!” Years of talking on the phone to women named Caitlin who want to make sure I know that my snack for the slumber party has to be gluten-and sugar-and peanut-free. Years of neighbor children being forbidden from crossing the threshold of my home because I let my son eat microwave snacks while talking on his personal cell phone and playing murder games on the computer in front of the television while I lie on the floor under the dining room table with an ice pack on my head with strict orders for him not to interrupt me unless the house catches fire. And even then, what the fuck am I going to do? Call 911, you stupid kid.
I could go on. I could add another 296 things to this list and still not even scratch the surface of why my having a child is a bad idea, the first of which is that you already have some, and if your white kids were to gang up on my black kid, I would have no problem starting a race war in our home. I can see it now: I come home from the bar where I spend my afternoons crying and wishing I had made different choices in my life to find White 1 and White 2 playing slave auction or some other horrible game with my baby. I burn the house down with all of us in it, screaming whatever lines I can remember from Django Unchained at the top of my lungs. So yeah, we’re not going to adopt.
3. Will our experiences with our exes help or hinder us?
Well, I can’t be hindered by dead people, so I’m all good. JUST PLAYING, WISHING SOMEONE WERE DEAD DOESN’T MAKE IT REAL, SAM.
4. How important is religion? How will we celebrate religious holidays, if at all?