100 Things To Do Before Getting Pregnant
When it comes to anything even remotely related to how a woman is “supposed” to live her life, there is simply an excess of conflicting information out there telling us what to do. I know the world has a set way that I’m supposed to live my life, but it seems the like edicts are arbitrary, ever changing, and subject to the whims and personal viewpoints of whoever’s writing Thought Catalog’s most recent take on “432 Things To Do Before You Experience Delayed Menarche: A Guide For Late Bloomers About How To Live Your Life.” These lists are crushing and oppressive and all have the confidence to tell me that they’re all right, and I am the only one getting it wrong.
There’s no lack of information out there pertaining to how to best be a young person, and I’ve been doing it all wrong. Or right. It really depends on the list. Here’s a sampling of the multitude of things I’ve been told to do before getting pregnant, and I need to do ALL of them. Heaven help me.
- Visit like seven or so countries
- Dye your hair a really ill-advised color
- Have all the protected sex you want
- Live abroad
- Stop hating your body
- Get better at filing your taxes (is it supposed to take two months?)
- Run a marathon (or two half marathons)
- Did I mention run a marathon?
- No seriously, if you don’t run, just walk or roll yourself off a bridge. There’s no point.
- Take a solo trip someplace new
- Spend money exorbitantly on yourself with no guilt
- Establish a fan base online for something weird like a glasses fetish
- Date like a million people
- Date one person and get it right the first time
- Own a house
- Own two houses
- Find a nice rent controlled place with room for a baby
- No, own a house. You must own a house or else you will be an unfit mother
- Get married to a person
- Also follow your own path and if marriage isn’t part of your journey don’t get married, but get married
- SEE the world!
- GO dancing!
- BE young!
- Find a fulfilling job
- Find a job that pays well
- Find a job that is both fulfilling and pays well
- Plan for every single eventuality ever
- Have a lost, irresponsible year
- Start saving for your future
- Hang onto your job
- Enjoy being married for a while! There’s no rush
- You know what happens after 30, right?
- Rise to the top of your profession
- Don’t waste too much time
- Have sex at weird hours of the day because after you have a baby you will become a dried up sexless shrew who always calls your husband when he’s just out with his friends to insist that he bring home four boxes of tampons
- Devote yourself entirely to your career
- Find a balance between your career and your partner
- Find a balance between your career and your partner and your social life
- Have your own life independent of your partner
- Make joint decisions with your partner
- Have “me” time
- Buy a dog. If you do not own a dog before having a child, you will have no idea how to take care of a baby
- Buy two dogs, especially if you plan to have multiple children
- Pick up and leave one day with no explanation. You’re young and nothing’s holding you back from starting over entirely!
- Continue to build that savings account for retirement
- Have an ill-advised love affair with an older man
- Try to lock your partner down by your late twenties because tick tick tick tick tick
- Go see a movie alone. This is the most rebellious thing a woman can do, apparently.
- No wait. Go to dinner alone. Look at you, you goddamn radical. You’re nobody’s mother.
- Go on a vacation with your girlfriends. Friends are useless once you have kids.
- Read all books about parenting
- Read all books because me time ends the moment a child emerges from your vagina (or whatever orifice/delivery system)
- Learn every single medical condition that a future child could contract
- Worry about the future
- Be carefree
- Do carefree activities like a “bold” haircut or eating cake for dinner (not too much)
- Order sushi twice in a day because you’re young and free
- Do a juice cleanse
- Find a hobby that encompasses all of your life passions
- Find a job that encompasses all of your life passions
- Find a partner who encompasses of all of your life passions
- Juggle two guys at once because you can, sister
- Learn how to actually juggle objects
- Fall asleep without washing your face or taking your makeup off
- Begin an anti aging regimen
- Eat whatever you want before you metabolism slows down
- Don’t be fat
- Make a five-year-plan
- Make a ten-year-plan
- Throw your plan out the window
- Make stupid, life altering mistakes
- Do enough drugs to hit the magic point of having fun but don’t go too far or you’ll get meth face and then nobody will want to put a baby in you
- Live alone
- Live with your female friends
- Live with a squatter
- Live on a moving train
- Learn a fun party skill like bartending or giving blow jobs
- Have sex on a train
- Have sex on a plane
- Do remember that all sex ends one day sooner than you think. Married people do not ever have sex, they simply have resentment
- Have weird sex modeled after porn that you watched together
- Develop a really sexy addiction to caffeine
- Date a much older man
- Date a much younger man
- Date an actual child. The catch is that you should also be a child. Young love.
- Date an actual elderly person who is close to dying so you can get in his will and then use his life savings to pay for your future child
- Spend time with family members’ or friends’ children so you can get a feel for things
- Decide you hate children
- Suddenly experience your biological clock turning on and telling you to steal your friends’ children
- Remind every person on earth that you’re not ready for kids yet
- Remind every person on earth that you’re not ready for marriage yet
- Brush up on your high school French so your kids can be bilingual and better than other kids
- Start a Pinterest account (this is the only way to find out what’s hip for your baby shower)
- Judge your friend’s baby showers on Facebook
- Give up on your dream
- Never give up on your dream
- Lean in
- Opt out
- Do everything
- Have it all
So, cool, I’m off to do all of those things. Then maybe one day we can say I got this whole being a young future parent right.
Photo: Knocked Up