I’ve been thinking a lot recently about events I can see in my future. Being a mother is something that I’ve always wanted for myself, and I would like to think I came to that conclusion on my own accord rather than the arguably primitive societal expectation for women to have children. To have a child, a family, is a dream I have for myself outside of the traditional social clock. Thus, I’ve been thinking about what kind of world my future child might enter. What will be the important aspects of life I want to help them understand? How can I be the best version of myself that might warrant my becoming a supportive parent? Most of all, who might this child end up to be?
So here, in short, is a list for this human.
I want you to know how excited I am to know you.
I want you to know how much you are loved.
I can’t wait to see you smile for the first time, or hear you laugh. Especially when you laugh at my “dad jokes.”
That first moment, when someone tears you down, or tries to convince you that you are ANYTHING less than your worth, I hope it shakes you. It will upset your core, it may confuse you. I hope that you don’t let it break you, and I hope you understand that your dignity as a human being is independent from what someone else says about you.
I can’t wait to hear you sing. Young kids are fantastic singers who always sing on-key.
When you go to the movie theater (should such a place even still exist during your youth), order a large popcorn with butter and a soda and candy and whatever you feel like. Life really is too short to do otherwise.
I’m so excited to read to you. Then, teach you how to read. Following that, I hope to read with you. To write your own story, you need to be able to read other’s.
When you’re entering the traditional “angsty teen” years and you won’t like what I tell you to do, or begrudge the inherent authority of a parent the same way one might be upset with social class divisions and the bourgeois, I hope you’ll always know my love is unconditional.
It would rock my world if you like pickles. If not, that’s okay, more for me.
There will be times when the person in your life that is the hardest to get along with is members of your own family. I want us to be able to have open conversations, set expectations, explain reasoning, and come to every understanding with a grace of two people who love each other.
When you have your first heartbreak, because yes, it will happen, I hope we can sit together and talk about it. Then, eat ice cream and watch “Friends.” You’ll get through it.
I love you without knowing you.
I love you unconditionally.
I love you.