I'm 27
I’m 27
by Amanda McQuade
I’m 27
And I’m going to tell you a secret:
I want a baby.
It’s disgusting, I know.
I want to quit
My job
And
Be
A mom.
Just a mom.
Not some Dr.
Who juggles
And not some
Artist who glitters.
A mom
With one of those bags
That holds everything.
I think of what I’d
Put in that bag:
Diapers,
Several changes of clothes,
Bottles,
Bottle-warmers,
Blankets (babies need lots of these),
My day-planner
Where I would
List all the baby-plans
And dinner plans
And school functions
And parent meetings
And pony rides
And sleepovers
And picnic’s.
I’d pencil in
Sicknesses
And laugher.
Make a big calendar –
Stretch my life out to little boxes
That I could see for miles,
But I’m so disorganized;
Can barely keep
Myself together.
I should get one of those
Bags for me
And stuff my life
Into cotton and acrylic
Where I could travel
With ease
And move with
Purpose.
Purpose – sounds
Like porpoise
When I say it.
And I guess that’s
What I feel
Like: a whale
Swimming in
An ocean,
But I don’t want to be
Meandering in the sea!
I want to have a
Nice big, box
Where I can snuggle.
What was I talking about?
A baby? That’s right,
I want a baby-shaped box.
this is great. such a perfect example of why some 27 year olds shouldn’t have a baby. what with all the adhd symptoms and thirty being the new twenty (which make twenty year olds equivalent to ten year olds).
but seriously, this does a great job of expressing the idealization of parenthood and the supposed ‘tidyness’ of raising kids. every parent could read this and chuckle.
the very mostest importantest and truest parts of this are:
“I want to quit
My job
And
Be
A mom.
Just a mom.”
(because having children should be a full time job – in order to do it RIGHT – and not just another thing on the list to do so you can cross it off. its not okay to have kids KNOWING that you’re just going to give them to someone else to raise for 9 hours a day)
and:
“I’d pencil in
…
laugh[t]er.”
(because if life isn’t full of it naturally, then by all means pencil it in!)