An about-to-be couple asked what books they should read to prepare for parenthood. My answer.
—L. Duggan
"Forget all the books. If you want to prepare for parenthood watch any or all of Jane Goodall's videos. Or just go to the zoo. Every day. Ask to feed the monkeys or lions. Focus on your own sweating, squatting, grunting, stinking, oozing, farting, belching, laughing, crying, eating and shitting for the next six months or so. Get intimate with your reptile brain and your monkey body. Start grooming your partner, using your fingers and your tongue. You won't sleep more than four hours, you won't eat more than four bites, you won't speak in full sentences for at least four months (more honestly, for four years). Every fear you ever had will become magnified in the long, dark nights ahead of you. But every joy will become larger, too. It will bring out your best. It will bring out your worst. And every fart, sigh, giggle, poop, puke, yelp and cry of your son or daughter will prove to be the most amazing, most colorful, most beautiful sights and sounds you will ever see or hear. No one else but your partner and possibly your parents and in-laws will agree. It doesn't matter. Forget photos. Lose the video camera. It will all be burned into your hearts. You are about to get back, as Mr. Havens said, to the garden. Prepare the nest however you like. There is no such thing as knowing what to expect. Expect it all. There is no right bible of Expectation, only Consolation—that we, who have gone before you —we, total fucking idiotic miscreants without savings accounts, reliable cars, good personal hygiene or clues to effective parenting, made it, are making it—and if we can do it, by God, so can you."
When I was pregnant with #1, a friend sent me a really funny "get ready for parenthood" checklist, that included stringing a ten-pound bag of flour from the ceiling, cutting a hole in the bag, then setting the bag to swinging. Then you were to try and put spoonfuls of pudding into said bag. While you were barefoot & blindfolded and standing on a floor covered in cheerios (or legos or other sharp & crunchy objects). The list went on and on, and in my pre-maternal innocence, I had no idea how accurate that checklist was. But monkeys would work too.
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