13 things no one tells you about becoming a parent

Design flaws, witchcraft, Stockholm syndrome

#13.5: The hoods on baby clothes are inexplicably 4x the size of a baby’s head. This creates the impression that your child is a terry-clad hostage perpetually en route to an unknown destination. (Not entirely untrue, if you think about it.)

Links is publishing on an altered schedule while I’m out on parental leave. This pint-sized update is part of a casual, limited-run series for paid supporters, who made this time off possible for me.

Thank you, sincerely, to all the folks who subscribed in advance of my leave and over the past year. I lamentably do not have a trust fund, a wealthy spouse or a conventional 9-to-5 media job that covers things like paid time off and health insurance, so — your subscription directly supports both my time with my newborn and the existence/sustainability of the whole Links operation. I’m already cooking up some new ideas and features for after the break, too!! If you’d like to see that work make it out into the world, please consider upgrading your subscription. And thank you. <3

Previously:

• Deranged maternal goblins

• On the internet, nobody knows you’re pregnant

• All my beautiful AI children

• The out-of-office message I struggled to send

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The subject line promises 13 observations, but allow me a bonus 14th one: It is actually, surprisingly very difficult to write much of anything with a newborn at home. After several false starts, I only “wrote” this list … as a voice memo … while nursing … circa 3 a.m. In hindsight, lots of people probably warned me about this. I just chose not to listen to them!

What follows are, however, genuinely new-to-me revelations. A bottle-warmer is just a poor man’s sous vide. The baby-book market is ripe for disruption. And nothing good ever truly comes free: not epidurals, not sample diapers, and not jokey late-night wisdom about parenting.

1. You will attain the boobs you wanted all your life, and they will be for naught. The only witnesses to your fabulous new tits are your newborn (indifferent) and your husband (politely appreciative, but also sleep-addled). When you go out in public, which is not often, you wear baggy shirts stained with infant spit. Often your child is strapped to your chest. It’s FINE, it’s all fine, but it feels … ironic.

2. Most babies are born with Stockholm syndrome. Having just escaped the cramped, dark dungeon where they spent nine months, many still crave containment and sensory deprivation. You can best mimic this unpleasant environment through the use of a sound machine and an infant straight jacket. (... which is cleverly marketed to new parents under a gentler euphemism: the “SWADDLE SACK.”)

3. The hospital bill will be immense. You will have a number in your head, but this number will exceed it. And in that brutal moment when the bill arrives, only one canny thought will bring you solace: You took that maternity ward for everything it was worth. You left with so many goddamn samples the nurse had to find you a plastic tote. You are still, in fact, working your way through this unearned stockpile of free pads and ointments and diapers. So if you are expecting, mark my words: You want every freebie that you can get. Ask the nurse for more of everything. Then ask the next nurse when the shift changes.

4. You will spontaneously embrace standards of cleanliness and hygiene you never observed for yourself. You will begin dusting the ceiling fan blades. You will start pre-treating your laundry. You will stop using the same towels to dry your hands and your dishes, because your mother says that dish towels could harbor disease. In one extraordinary instance, you will kill an errant silverfish with your BARE HANDS rather than allow it to slither off to some dark corner and reproduce in the home where your child lives. You have never killed a silverfish in your life. You will feel heroic; beatific, even.