Marla Joe Fisher is a single mother, journalist and workaholic. Otherwise, how would she raise two of her own and two adopted children? She decided to share her observations: what happens to a person when he becomes a parent. And he was, for example, a fashionable hipster.
When people decide to have children, they don’t think about that. They think about money, work, how joint leisure time, vacation plans will change. But in fact, you need to think about something else. That a parent is a “dude who is not cool.” If you are an advanced hipster now, this is over. And very quickly.
And what really happens to you: you start doing yoga for pregnant women and wearing comfortable clothes. If you are a father, then your task is to grow a beard and tell your wife every day that she is not fat at all.
Then your friends will give you a hipster baby bath and 138 adorable suits with leather jackets for babies, from which your child will grow up in nine days. Nobody will give you a car seat or a year’s supply of diapers, no. God forbid, if you get a gift card in a children’s store.
Then everyone will go to drink martini and “mimosa”, and you will be left alone with the child and the costumes.
Do you imagine that you can continue to lead your hipster lifestyle, you will still be relaxed and easy-going, only with such a small accessory like Paris Hilton’s dog in your hands? You can try. There is even a special fashionable Hipster Plus sling. It only costs $ 170 and allows you to carry your baby in a wide variety of positions and pretend it’s really a fashion accessory. And you can dress up the child in clothes from Ralph Lauren. Just don’t forget to grab the stole. To cover up if you need to feed the baby in public.
You will also be exhausted and exhausted by lack of sleep, you will have to slow down all the time and look for somewhere to sit down, because the child burst into tears, vomited or pee, but you can still pretend that your life has not changed.
But then the child will stop sitting in the cradle from Ralph Lauren and will start rushing around the restaurant, knocking over other people’s martinis and “mimosas”. Your living room is painted in soothing marine colors with plastic of all colors. Your white sofa will never be the same: they will burp and pee on it three thousand two hundred and ninety times.
And then you suddenly find yourself cooking dinner, because going somewhere is too troublesome. And yes, you cook some kind of trash from semi-finished products, because you are too tired to hold a knife or stand over the stove without falling asleep.
A hot bubble bath becomes a dream. You start to worship your TV, because cartoons distract your precious child from yourself and give you a break. Yes, he looks at the box more than he should, but you don’t care.
Yes, this is not cool.
But the most significant change in your status will be the abandonment of your cool car. In return, you will purchase a device that simply screams, “There is no more hope.” Yes, I’m talking about a minivan. Or a station wagon. Minibus, maybe. Convenient (what a vile word), comfortable, roomy family car.
Some try to cheat fate by buying jeeps instead of minivans. Like, so no one will notice that you are no longer a cool dude. Ha. Yes, you have a folding pot and a supply of wet wipes in your trunk, and a car seat in the back seat. A stroller instead of a kayak or bicycle. Who do you want to fool? Buy a minivan, it’s more honest.
Well, you also stop hanging out in clubs and dancing. After all, you need to get up early to collect Tanya in the kindergarten. To school. And even then, when you no longer need to do all this, you will wake up early – a habit, you know. I want to go to bed early. And I don’t want to dance.
“Where are you?” – once my teenage children wrote to me with indignation. “It’s late and you’re not home yet.”
The clock was midnight. I dared to sit with friends, and the children were shocked – this had not happened before.
I am struggling with myself. I do not allow myself to fit into my pajamas before 9 pm. The children have grown up, and I’m still waiting for when I will stop being a parent, cheer up and start living exclusively for my own pleasure. But that doesn’t seem to happen.
However, let me quote Elena Malysheva: “This is the norm!”