Were Our Parents Faking It Too?

When my husband agreed to have a baby with me, I was shocked.

Maybe I shouldn’t have been. We’d had a girl’s name picked out since we’d been dating for four months. That girl’s name? Was Mia. Because we’d been watching Pulp Fiction and decided that we loved the name of Uma Thurman’s heroin addicted character.

Not that we’d want her to be our future daughter’s role model. In case you were worried.

Even with our future daughter’s name long determined, I was shocked that he agreed so readily to have a baby with me.

Perhaps it was because I told him this while I lay in bed in my pajamas, happily munching junk food. Dishes were piled high in our sink when I posed my baby making initiative. I was not the picture of serene calm that I assumed I’d need to be before he agreed to let me rear his child. If anything, I looked like a freakily aged teenager.

I’m something of a contradiction in terms when it comes to completing tasks. The things I want to accomplish are tackled with an almost reckless drive. The things I find tedious wait on the sidelines, potentially forever.

Were I to decide to conquer a new world, I’m sure said conquering would be completed in a timely and efficient manner. I would establish myself as a kind and benevolent empress with ease. But I would be one of the few emperesses in the world with a pile of laundry tickling her waist.

When our son was brought into the world, we had the good sense not to name him Mia even though it was the only name we had picked out. I spend my days questioning the rest of our decisions.

We do the dishes more often and our piled of laundry doesn’t teeter as high as it used to.

Still there are things that plague me; things that continue to make me feel as though I am only playing at being a parent.

When he does something brand new and rebellious, I often have to fight not to laugh.

Sometimes, I don’t really want him to go to bed because we’re having too much fun and I don’t want to ruin it.

Other times, I really want him to go to bed so I can have some fun that doesn’t involve me scraping food off the walls.

I don’t really feel all that parental. Part of me imagined that once I became a mother I’d lose all touch with pop culture, snark and things that were in anyway disorganized.

But I haven’t changed that much. My hair didn’t whip itself up into a bun upon conception.

Instead, I’m wandering around in my pajamas at 4 pm. I’m scanning VH1 to see if I can get away with watching a countdown instead of Yo Gabba Gabba. Wracked with guilt at the idea of letting Alex know who the #1 celebrity train wreck of 2010 is, I choose instead to dance and shimmy with DJ Lance Rock. But I’m not always happy about it. Just like I’m not always sure how or when to reprimand him.

Though I’ve read parentings books and articles, not one of them has given me the secret key to being a parent. Most days, I’m going on gut; flying by the seat of my pants. I’m pretending to know what I’m doing because somehow, unfathomably, I’m the one in charge.

Even though I still feel like a five year old most days.

Which leads me to wonder: all this time, were our parents faking it too?

I bet they were.

My mother laughing at me leads me to believe I’m right.