TMI: Too Much Information

I was spouting off to my friend the other day, boring her with my insecurities, and trying to convince myself I wasn’t terrified by this whole thing.

"Well, you're never really ready to have kids," I said, quoting one of those lines you always hear older relatives preaching. “But at least I think we’ll be prepared.”

My friend is very kind and encouraging. "Well, I'm sure you're reading lots of parenting books,” she said.

You know the Wiley Coyote cartons where he runs into the anvil and there’s this kind of “Do-ooong!” noise. That’s how I felt. Parenting books? Why didn’t I think of that before?

So no, I haven’t even riffled the pages of a parenting book yet. The truth is, I’ve just finished driving myself insane with the other books. First there were the pregnancy books (just in case), which became the fertility books (to help things along), which eventually became the infertility books. The main lesson I learned with these books is that there is such a thing as too much information. One book will tell you “Lay still for 20 minutes after sex” and the next will say, “Anything that’s going to make it will be on its way within 15 seconds.”

As the subject of this post is “too much information” I’ll leave it at that. Suffice to say, the thought of diving into another mountain of conflicting information about raising children is about the last thing I want to do. But what do I know about being a parent?

Well, I’ve been parented, and they did a pretty good job, I think, so role models are a good way to go. And the world is full of reverse role models--count the times you’ve said, “I would NEVER (fill in the blank) with my children.”

Still perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to maybe peruse a book or two, get some ideas from experts.

Just for the purposes of research, I went to Amazon and typed in “parenting.”

40,436 results!

I rest my case.