How Baby

As a parent, a constant low-key simmering belief that I’m doing everything wrong and everyone else is a better parent than me is kind of a standard fixture of my life. Nothing brings that home more than when I’m working at conventions and I see tons of families there with their kids, doing family stuff together.

I’m not a nurturer by nature, so I have a lot of respect for people who’ve found their calling in caregiving. Especially when there’s more than one kid involved! So when I see parents out with a passel of kids and everyone’s calm and clean and having fun and making memories together, I think: wow. They’re way better at this parenting thing than I am.

But then sometimes I hear from people that they think I have it all together, because I’m still pursuing art and a career after having a kid. I didn’t ‘give up’ or ‘let myself go’ or ‘lose my identity’ or any number of those loaded phrases that don’t mean anything, but we use to judge mothers anyway. To them, I’m the mom who has it all – meanwhile I’m thinking the same of them.

Doing the comic and hearing the stories you share with me reminds me that we’re all struggling, and we all measure the ugly bits of ourselves we know intimately against the beautiful bits of everyone else they show to the world. Of course we look at each other and think other people are doing better, because this shit is hard and will mess with your confidence like nothing else, no matter what you choose.

—

(PS: I don’t know how it happened, but I kind of fell in love with these two characters? In my head, they definitely end up dating. They don’t even have names yet, but I think HB just picked up its first pair of background NPCs, haha.)

—

There’s less than two days left on the Aspen Tyke Traveler Kickstarter, which has partnered with How Baby to put mini zines in every bag! Check ’em out if you haven’t already! And thanks so much if you already have – they’ve already doubled their goal!

—

And, I’m back from Boston! Thank you to everyone who stopped by the table to say hello, especially Denise and her family, who made the trip to the con just to see me! I’m touched, guys. Thanks for being there and for making my first trip to Boston so awesome. 🙂