Our 8 year old daughter announced her plan to have an unplanned baby when she is a teenager.  It was a beautiful 70 degree afternoon.  We finished brunch and on our way to the car she declared that when she accidentally has a baby when she is a teenager, she will not be giving it away to the place where we donated the sandbox earlier this year.  We did not explain that the place she was thinking of actually takes in the homeless teen mother as well as the infant.  We instead went right to the discouragement tack.  Yes, we went there.

Now, I have plenty of experience reasoning with grade-schoolers.  In fact, I am 0-for-100 and something. Which means I have a lot of experience but I always lose. That didn’t stop me, though.  It’s like when she was 6 and wanted to make “soup”.  As a 21st century parent, I like to encourage experimentation.  Instead of disallowing dumb stuff, I generally try to present all of the considerations – people may not like that much pepper, the bread will  get soggy, the gummy worms will just melt and dissolve.  She is never deterred.  She just says, “okay. well, I’m going to do it anyway.”

So, we went down that road.  

“you know, if you have a baby, you can’t go to college”

“I will take the baby with me to college”

“they won’t let you bring your baby to college”

“I’ll get a babysitter”

“How will you pay for a babysitter?”

“Lemonade stand”

“how will you run a lemonade stand when you have a baby?”

“you can have a baby at a lemonade stand”

It was about at this point that I realized we were headed for, “okay. well I’m going to do it anyway.”  So, we just stopped.  We still have lots of time before motherhood – accidental, planned/unplanned or not – is even anatomically possible, right?

Someone told me that she could start her lady stuff as soon as 10 years old.  Less than 2 years from now.  

I WILL NOT ALLOW THIS! SHE STILL CALLS ME DADA FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! WHO DO I NEED TO CONTACT TO GET THIS CHANGED??

Anyway, i’ve started interviewing families with young boys.  I figure if it’s going to accidentally happen, I might as well pick a family that’s good at hosting family get-togethers.  We are going to be sharing grand-babies after all…