Babies Don't Love, They Need

It. Is. Almost. Monday.

Umm, I don't know if you know but I'm sort of a big deal and since we last spoke have become uber fancy.  Seriously considering getting myself a smoking jacket, one of those beatnik Hepburn-esque cigarette holders, mayhaps even a monocle.

I discovered this website called... Twatter or Twitter, I'm unclear on the pronunciation.  I don't know if you know about it, it's basically a spinning internet carnival whereby following me is the equivalent of having the disjointed thoughts of your local insane woman sent to your phone or computer at her whim.  This woman, who you probably already follow because she appears to be some sort of uterus Hub, interrogated me under hot lights and water boarded me until I agreed to join.

I'm twittering about my twat @StupidStork, ladies and gents.  Now who else is on there?!?  SHOW YOURSELVES.

This is going to be one of those posts where Stork needs to vent.  (If not to you people, then who, damnit). Now as I am about to get uncharacteristically judgey, please keep in mind that yes I'm a heathen, but usually a very kind and charming one.

Here, to soften you up first, a pug on a slide.

I have previously written a little bit about my half-sister, 'Summer', but don't worry I'll summarize (or Summerize - SEE WHAT I DID THERE?) so there's no catch-up involved.

I was adopted, day one minute one after being born, by the best possible parents a child could ask for. (Tip from an adoptee:  when discussing their origin story - like they're a superhero! - make sure to use the terms 'birthparents'.  'Real parents' or 'your mom and dad' is like nails on a chalkboard.  This has been a PSA).

I did the whole meet the birthparents and siblings thing (I'm sure I'll write about that someday) because I was just too curious.  Birthmom is a nice lady, and she had my half-brother a few years after I was born.  I can completely embrace being genetically related to her, and she raised him herself and did a great job.  Love him, get him, he is a part of my life. 

My birthfather is a story for another day.  Let's just say back in the day, at least, he wasn't the most exemplary of men, and 6 years after I was born he had my half sister, Summer. (Actually, you should really be reading that as Sumer - her name is a common word, but my genius birthfather and her mother didn't know how to spell it properly, so she would forever be Sumer).

Seeing as how the birthfather was older and 'more mature' by the time Summer came along, he attempted to raise her for a few years prior to going to prison.  Her Mom has an involvement in her life but mostly let Summer's grandparents (who are destitute) raise her, and the birthfather has remained mostly out.  (For the record, I am obviously for countless reasons extremely fortunate to have been adopted, and wish I had a magic wand to make Summer just as lucky).

I didn't know about Summer until I was a teenager, and we wrote letters.  A little while after Bub and I were married, I flew her out to L.A. for a week and that was the one and only time we've been in the same space. I love her very much, I do - but as is true with the entirety of my paternal side, I don't really 'get' her.  We keep in touch via facebook occasionally, and that will probably be the extent of our relationship.

Summer has not been single for more than five minutes since she was 16.  She is now 24 and from what I can tell has been engaged to every other 'man' that has come into her life.  After cheating on each other, and breaking up and getting back together right up until the wedding, Summer married 'Brad' this past fall.  They were on foodstamps, welfare, and Summer has no plans to get a job.  They of course immediately started to try and get pregnant and (of course!) immediately succeeded, but don't worry I don't think this is getting in the way of her spending her money on and smoking pot. She is now 5 months pregnant, and as of today I have just learned that she is back with her destitute and very elderly grandfather, and getting a divorce.

I want to make clear that I love her, and again, wish I had a magic wand that could help her.  I also want to make clear that I have no idea where I would be if I wasn't lucky enough to be adopted.. maybe even worse off than she is.

But here comes the vent.  If the pug didn't do it please be softened by this very demanding christmas tree.

I am, as you probably know, a bleeding heart liberal.  And if ever there was a person that needed financial help from the government?  Summer is it.  What I have a hard time understanding is when you're in a position to need that much help, you're 24 and you've been married for 2 months, how planning a baby right away sounds like a smart idea.

Yesterday, I quite innocently popped onto Facebook and was taken aback by 3 things in my newsfeed, one on top of the other:

1. Selfies Brad took of himself posing with money
2. that he has listed himself as 'separated'
3. Summer is now listed under her maiden name.

I immediately sent her a message to see what happened.

No one cheated, no one beat anyone, but he was coming home from work late an entire week in a row and then didn't put ultrasound pictures up on his Facebook page.  So she left.  That's it, the end of the 6 month marriage, full steam ahead towards divorce.  She was temporarily homeless, now she's living back with her grandfather but don't worry, she's now with a guy who 'wants to be there for her'.  This all happened in two weeks.  

I told her I loved her, I'm sorry this situation didn't work out for her, I'm thinking happy thoughts for her, let me know if she needs anything.

But, of course, there are a few things I really want to say.

(Try to still love me, please).

I fully understand the difference between Summer and I, as far as how our 'surprise' existence was dealt with.  I was given up for adoption because somehow my birthmother, despite her age and inexperience, understood that I needed a different kind of love than she could provide.  At that time, she really could've used someone to show up and love her unconditionally, but on some level she understood that I was not that candidate and she was not ready.  With Summer, her Mom wanted someone to fill the holes in her life and thought Summer was the candidate.  When she realized that that wasn't how it was going to pan out, Summer got passed around.

Now that I'm an adult, because of how I was raised and the kind of love I was exposed to, I get that having someone to love you is not a good primary reason to have a child.  And because of how Summer was raised, I can't help but think she doesn't get that.

No one has any business creating a human being just so that they can have someone who loves them. No one.

Babies are hopefully born of love, and those babies will grow up to love you.... but babies don't really love, babies need.

It is the only existing relationship that I can think of where the design of it is entirely for one person to pour their love and everything that they can give, gleefully into someone who only has the ability to take it.

In an ideal world the person consciously making a decision to create themselves this kind of relationship does it because they are so full of love, care and attention that they want to channel that into that child and see what grows. Again, not because they're lacking love but because they have so much of it. They understand that there's two kinds of love - the love you give a child, and the love you give everyone else.

Any other type of love on the planet, you can expect full reciprocation, and if you're giving more than you're getting, a person of good self esteem eventually says "peace, I'm out".  Love for a child should ideally come with the total understanding that for a long time your job is to give and their job is to take - which logically means that this is not going to be the thing that makes up for all those adults who didn't reciprocate.

Trying to fill adult-made holes with a baby is like trying to solve the problem of thirst by putting on moisturizer.  It's not the same thing.

Of course your baby loves you... but it's not going to make up for adults not loving you, or you not loving yourself.  A baby should just have to deal with growing up, not with righting the wrongs of the adults you had in your life.

If what you want is a tomato garden, you plant it with the understanding that it's going to take commitment.  You plant seeds, you water, you make sure it gets the right amount of light and attention.  That act alone is supposed to feed your soul. If you do a good job, later on you'll get tomatoes.  If you do it in the hopes that those seeds immediately after - shall we say implantation? - are going to turn around and concern themselves with whether or not you're getting enough light and attention, you're going to end up with a mess in your backyard.

Yes I'm over simplifying, yes I realize it's not an ideal world and I doubt there's one person reading this who isn't familiar with the apparent law of the universe that the very women who get instant gratification in the reproductive department are often times the very women who don't think about these things.

I'm just saying if the majority of your reasoning behind creating a human being is because you want someone to love you?  You have it backwards.  Create a human being because you want to love, because you want to experience what it's like to pour your heart and soul into someone just to see what they'll do with it.

And of course, no one is going to love you like your child is going to love you.  I have the Mother of all Mothers, and if she needed a kidney tomorrow I would rip it out with my bare hands.

But I'm 31.  When I arrived, I was a ball of confusion and need, and though I'm sure she was my favorite person from day one, let's be honest, for the first couple of years it was probably in large part because girlfriend showed up with a bottle when I was hungry and a clean diaper when I had pooped.  Child love instantly available - adult gratitude and love come later.

A baby is helpless, innocent, new.  When it arrives and for several years to forever, the only item on the agenda is for you to make him/her feel loved in the scary new world, teach him/her about it, help usher them through it in a way that will keep them happy and safe.  That's the item on the agenda.  They don't exist solely to arrive and immediately start to provide you with the love themselves.  That was your Moms job.

If tomorrow I am beamed up and sent to Mars (hopefully you're not, at this point, wishing this on me) I don't think my first order of business will be making the aliens feel loved and safe.  Maybe in time I will, but frankly for a good long while there I'm just gonna need them to explain to me how to breathe right and navigate, and then in time when I finally have my wits about me I will love them for it.

If what you're looking for is to fill a hole in your heart that was created by adults, a baby is not immediately going to be able to fill it - those are adult sized holes.  I wish for everyone that there is at least one person on the planet who makes you feel whole, complete, and loved, however in this world there are people in their 50s who don't know how to do that for another person, a baby is not going to instantly figure it out.  I just can't help but think that the kind of hole that Summer is dealing with, Summer should figure out how to fill herself.

And I know I'm not some perfectly together, fully whole person.  I know that if I'm given the opportunity to parent I'm going to fuck it up royally at times, and there will be times when I unfairly expect my child to fill a hole that they didn't create.

But I get that a baby, when they arrive, needs.  And that it's my job to fill those needs.

I get that my job is to be covered in cheerios, panicking every time they get a cut and to be a sexless ball of providing for a few years.

I get that what I'll be receiving is the ability and opportunity to love and care for someone on a level that I don't yet know, and that that's the part of the experience that's going to feed me.

I get that I am volunteering to put my needs and wants on the back burner just to get the opportunity to put theirs first.

I get that whatever shortcomings I have as a result of my time on this earth, that it's my job to fix them and not my childs.

I get that you have a child to love and provide, not to be loved and provided for.

I get that I have to dramatically pause anytime I want to make a decision and that even though I'll fuck it up sometimes, I need to make our baby the deciding factor rather than myself.

I get that I'm volunteering to downgrade my husband and my love life to second place on the list of priorities, just for the opportunity to look into the eyes of that loves product.

I get all these things.

What I don't get, of course, is a baby.