14 Obvious Signs You’re So Not Ready For Parenthood

1. Saturday morning arrives and your eyes pop open. Happily reading the numbers on the alarm clock, you calculate: nine disturbance-free hours of sleep. You silently thank the Gods for how comfortable, refreshed and responsibility-free you currently are, and roll back over to shut your eyes again.

2. You’re dining out with friends, enjoying some generally pleasant conversation. All of a sudden, the baby or toddler at the neighboring table begins to wail, making continuation of your dialogue almost impossible. The parent plucks the child from its seat to walk outside and you relish the fact that your life is so easy.

3. A friend of yours – who has a baby – recently told you of a “shit explosion” that ruined the child’s best outfit and proceeded to soil your friend’s clothing as well. You cannot fathom anything more disgusting in all of creation.

4. A puppy or kitty seems the much more appealing option as of right now.

5. You stumble across a mommy blog that discusses the total lack of sleep accompanying parenthood. You think about that time recently you only got five hours of shut eye and what a heinous, irritable monster you were for two whole days afterward.

6. You already think that there’s not enough time in the day to accomplish all you set out to do.

7. “Nipple sensitivity” is the only phrase radiating in your mind during your period. They hurt when touched; they hurt when not touched. You wish you could walk around naked simply to escape the shirt-on-nipple anguish. For a quick second you imagine something suckling your tit, and you want to die.

8. Something wakes you in the middle of the night and you want to track down the source and smash it with a hammer.

9. Someone shows you a picture of her newborn and “ew” is the only thing that comes to mind. The child, you notice, bears an uncanny resemblance to ET.

10. You cried the last time you looked at your bank account and have been avoiding it ever since.

11. You can’t think of anything better than a day in which you have nowhere to be and nothing to do.

12. When babysitting recently, you could not believe the level of attention required to pacify the child. In the two minutes you weren’t watching him, he dumped out an entire basket of stuff and spilled shit on the carpet. All you could think of was all the things you were going to do once you were “free.”

13. The idea of losing a favorite shirt because someone threw up on it? Ridiculous. Disgusting. Annoying. Not cute. Not happening.

14. As you peruse social media, particularly the profiles of young mothers, you can’t help but think that – behind all the cute pictures, finger paintings and Halloween costumes – those moms are probably really, really tired. And while their kids are, admittedly, very adorable, you are fine waiting a long time before embarking upon parenthood.