The first time I ever held a baby, I knew immediately: I am going to have one of these someday. This thought was somehow preposterous, given that I was around 11 at the time. But as I cradled my brand-new infant cousin (while sitting down, of course, given that I absolutely should not have been trusted to protect her soft head on my own two feet) and listened to my dad’s girlfriend exchange postpartum chitchat with my aunt—”Is she sleeping?” “Are you sleeping?”—I knew I eventually wanted in on this funny little sorority of maternal wisdom that, as an only child, I’d never previously known existed.
My more-than-passing interest in babies only grew as I got older; not only did I get birth doula-certified as part of a requirement for a Reproductive Justice seminar I took in college (no, I don’t know how to deliver your baby, but yes, I would be great at passing the time by facilitating conversation about the Kardashians in the delivery room), but I spent most of my undergrad summers nannying for the same Brooklyn family. This family had one son at the time, a cheerful little cherub of a nine-month-old when I met him who somehow turned two, then three, then almost four by the time I graduated, and I’m still in awe at his mom’s extremely unfussy way with him.
I barely had any infant experience when I started, yet instead of taking one look at my clunky Doc Martens and tattered Goodwill witch dresses and showing me the door, the baby’s mom encouraged me to take her son anywhere I pleased, from the Coney Island Aquarium to the Bareburger on Court Street. I would buckle him into the Snugli, fill a tote bag with diapers and puffed cereal, and we’d be off, him squealing with joy every time we passed a garbage truck and me vowing to be exactly this kind of loving yet chill mother someday when—not “if”—I had kids.
I kept nannying on and off after college, and the more chaotic and unstable my personal life was, the more sure I was of my dream of motherhood. Having never had a serious relationship, it was weirdly easier to picture myself as a someday-single mom than to imagine sharing the responsibility of having a kid with any of the various fuckboys, ghosting-prone girls, and nonbinary commitment-avoiders I dated in my 20s. “I want a kid by the time I’m 35,” I would proudly declare to anyone who asked throughout the years, even referencing my sureness about my desire to parent in my memoir. I would read books by the likes of Sheila Heti, Michelle Tea, and Meaghan O’Connell about ambivalence toward parenthood and feel drawn to their honesty, yet unable to recognize myself. I might not have known how I’d conceive, who I’d parent with, or how I’d pay for literally any of it, but I knew parenting was for me. Until…it maybe wasn’t?
