Dear Daughter: Sorry About All This

You deserve the freedom I had to make choices about your own life

Dear Juniper,

You’re six months old today. I can’t believe how fast it’s gone. Every day you seem more like a little girl and less like a baby. Sometimes, I put you down for a nap and when I go to pick you up a couple hours later, I swear you’ve grown up a little. I am always surprised by how heavy you are.

We didn’t find out before you were born if you were a boy or a girl. I felt deep down that you were going to be a boy for a couple of reasons that were, in retrospect, based on some mildly sexist superstitions. First, I never threw up once when I was pregnant with you– not once. The Old Wives (whoever they are) say girls make moms sicker. Second, when I was pregnant, I was what they’d call “all belly.” I looked as though I’d swallowed a basketball– “You’re carrying high,” a random old Armenian woman at a car dealership had told me when I was about six months along. “You’re going to have a boy.” Sure, fine.

I remember the moment they told me that you are a girl as a tunnel vision montage of medical equipment beeps and your dad sobbing and doctors pulling things out of me while I couldn’t feel my legs. I would have been happy if you’d been a boy or a girl, but I’d always wanted a daughter, and now, at least until and unless you tell me differently, I have one. Shows how much the old wives know.

You looked so much like your dad when you were born. You keep looking more and more like him, which is fine with me because I’m a big fan of how your dad looks. You have his bright blue eyes and my emotional volatility.

You look at me like you know something that I don’t. You have figured out how to knot your little hands into my hair in a way that optimizes the force you can exert while pulling. You emote with your entire self- when you are happy, you are the happiest. You make eye contact and yell one long, sustained note while pooping. You sing in your car seat. When you are angry, you are the angriest. Otherwise, you’re either plotting or observing. You scare me a little bit, but in a cool way.

You can sit up without being propped up now. You are starting to eat solid foods. Cantaloupe is your favorite, but you’re also a fan of the taste of the wicker handle on your Easter basket.

You can make sounds that sound like the building blocks for words. “La-lo” sounds a little bit like the way we say “hello!” to you. “Ta-ta-ta” sounds a little bit like “Dada.” You make a “ma-ma-ma” sound when you’re hungry or furious, which would track with how a lot of kids ask for their moms. Sometimes you make a smacking noise at me when you’re hungry which, quite frankly, feels a little bit like being yelled at rudely by a stranger on the street. It won’t be long before you can tell me that you love me, and then, not long after that before you tell me that you hate me.

This morning, I woke up when you woke up, I fed you as you used your razor sharp fingernails to aimlessly scratch my arms (How are they so sharp? How do they grow so fast? Why do I have to cut them every day?), I dressed you in a pair of little blue overalls with stars on the knees that remind me of the film Eastern Promises, a dark and ultraviolent David Cronenberg movie that you won’t be able to watch until you’re a lot older.

I sang a version of Life On Mars to you as I changed your diaper and you laughed, not understanding that because I don’t know all of the words to the original song, I’d changed the words into something that made no sense for my own amusement. “Babies, fighting in the dance hall/ Oh man, look at those babies go./It’s baby’s next show/ Take a look at the baby/ Beating up the wrong guy” etc.

It’s a trip to watch you move forward so quickly in time as your country of birth moves backward in time. You, a baby girl, born November 2021, in the USA, a place where a constitution theoretically guaranteed you the right to control how, when, and if you became a mother. You, a baby girl halfway to a year old, suddenly living in a country on the precipice of being a place where the constitution does not guarantee you or any other little kid the right to control how, when, and if they become a mother. Four men and one woman who you’ve never met have decided that the way you make your family should be subject to popular vote. It feels like a bait and switch.

I’m so sorry. This isn’t what was supposed to happen. These aren’t the circumstances I’d wanted for you. It’s unacceptable for any kid to grow into adulthood in a country that is less free than the one into which she was born, much less one that holds itself out as a bastion of freedom and liberty.

I waited a long time to have you. Before I had you, I lived a life that was full, because I had the freedom to. I tried different lives, I tried different cities, I tried different boyfriends. I had different careers and I lived in different houses and had different friends. I traveled, I went to concerts and plays and museums. I ran marathons and went to parties and read books and stayed up too late and woke up too early. I learned how to drive a car, I let my drivers’ license expire, I learned how to drive a car again. I climbed mountains and I met interesting people. And then, when the time was right, I met your dad. And then, when the time was right, we had you.

Every day I am glad you are here, and that you are my little girl, even when I’m frustrated, even when I’m sad, even when I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what happens before we are born, but I feel like your dad and I were waiting for you, and you were waiting for us. If it had been any different, we wouldn’t have you.

I want you to live a life that is full. More than anything I want that for you. Whoever you are going to be, whoever you are going to love, whether or not you have a baby of your own one day and when– I want that to have that freedom. I want your life to be your choice. Nobody should have a say over that but you. (And it should go without saying but: I'll love you no matter what.)

I promise that I won’t give up on trying to get back there.

Love,

Mom

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