How Baby

If you begin a sentence with ‘just you wait…’ in my vicinity, you owe me $5. It’s $20 if you don’t actually have a kid older than mine and you’re just parroting other people’s jokes. I don’t make the rules.

If you’d told me before getting pregnant that these three little words could immediately send me into a wordless rage…

Something good happen? Having an easy time? Just you wait until they’re born/teething/walking/talking/driving! You’ll regret thinking it was easy for a few blissful moments!

Having a hard time? Just you wait until they’re born/teething/walking/talking/driving! You’ll WISH things were as easy as you have it now! All you should feel about the future is despair!

Is it hard to find the joy? Feeling an emotion other than overwhelming joy at the miracle of life? How dare you! Just you wait! You’ll regret having regular human emotions and not adequately performing happiness for the comfort of your friends and family!

I don’t think people mean it like this, but it’s terribly mean-spirited. It’s a conversation-ender. Like, great, okay, thanks for the hot tip, all I wanted to do was have a nice real moment, I guess, but if you want me to feel… some other emotion… despair? Panic? Dread? I guess I can do that…?