So, you want to be a mother

The definitive guide to supplantation

Welcome back to Stock Fiction, home of edgy and evocative short stories, immersive poetry, and occasional chop-busting humor.

I’m your host, Meg Oolders.

Novelist. Poet. Humorist.

And MOM.

Has it been a year already?

Yes. It has.

Today’s lavender and vanilla scented snark bomb originally aired a year ago, and it seems the first dose of Mother’s Day remonstration I dispensed did not take.

You have four days, people. Don’t disappoint the mother figure in your life.¹

Not again.

Brace yourself. And enjoy! This one is as feisty as they come.

If you’re reading this brochure, you’ve been successfully overwhelmed by the ubiquitous Mother’s Day displays in your local shops, government offices, and social media feeds. Mesmerized by the onslaught of pastel balloons, saccharine greeting cards, and forward-facing feminist books placed strategically next to vacuum cleaners and anti-aging products.

If you’re reading this brochure, you may have experienced a tell-tale ache in your ovaries or fidgeting in your fallopian tubes. Proof the Mother’s Day marketing industrial complex has duped you into believing our species is worth perpetuating.

If you’re reading this brochure, you are considering motherhood.

Thank you for your sacrifice.

The paths of “life giver” and “life liver” offer unique benefits and drawbacks, and at MAMDA we believe every woman has the right to choose. Though, as mothers and poor decisions makers ourselves, we fully expect you to erase your identity and transmit your trauma to the next generation.

Knowing what to expect on your sacrificial journey is paramount. Motherhood is no picnic, and only the bravest, most tenacious, and most selfless of women can hope to survive it unscathed.

If you’re reading this brochure, you are naïve enough to think bravery, tenacity, and selflessness will somehow make your mothering experience more rewarding than everyone else’s — despite hundreds of thousands of years of evidence to the contrary.

The future of humanity relies on your extraordinary self-delusion.

From the bottom of our hearts: thank you.

In order to become a mother, you must first acquire a child and claim ownership over it. (In this instance, “ownership” is purely ceremonial. Your child will, in fact, own you.)

Our future AI overlords haven’t legalized human cloning (yet), which means child acquisition is still achieved in one of three ways.

Make one. Also known as REPRODUCTION.

If your relationship with your own mother did not cause you to self-sterilize, reproduction could be a viable option for you.

Tragically, this option requires the use of a “man.”

The child-creating process is disconcertingly simple and will almost certainly be physically and emotionally underwhelming. In just thirty to forty seconds, you can sabotage the next thirty to forty years of your existence.

It should be noted, you don’t need the entire man. Just the extension of him that delivers the genetic material needed to generate life.

Furthermore, you don’t really need that vestige either. You just need the DNA-containing substance, which you can easily secure from a clinic. Or, if you act fast enough, from inside a sock or shower drain. The DNA-containing substance usually remains viable for about fifteen minutes after your internet browser history has been mysteriously purged.

However you gather the stuff, just mix it with your own genetic material at the precise moment your egg leaves your ovary. Women in the habit of obsessively tracking their menstrual cycles, tapping their pipes for cervical mucous, and journaling their She-Hulk-level mood swings in twenty-eight-day intervals, will know this moment intimately.

Buy one. Also known as ADOPTION.

If you:

• Cannot physically conceive

• Prefer not to have your body ravaged by a succubus for thirty-nine weeks and then watch it violently escape or get forcibly removed from your womb in truly nightmarish fashion

• Are rich AF

Then adoption could be a great option for you.

Pro tip: Aspiring mothers blessed with misinformed female friends may find success using a “surrogate.” Surrogates failed to pay attention to “The Miracle of Life” in sex-ed class, and willingly offer up their body as a host vessel for your demonic offspring.

Apparently, they want to have their body ravaged by a succubus for thirty-nine weeks and then watch it violently escape or get forcibly removed from their womb in truly nightmarish fashion.

Surrogates are angels. Should you encounter one in your child acquisition process, do not let them get away. Genuflect, praise, bribe, brainwash. Whatever it takes to ensure your hellspawn ends up in their body.

Steal one. Also known as ABDUCTION.

MAMDA strongly discourages kidnapping but is committed to providing you with all the possible options for motherhood.

Women unstable enough to consider motherhood in the first place may not be aware of the inherent risks associated with abduction. These include, but are not limited to:

• Incarceration

• Decent odds the people you stole the kid from will refuse to take it back once you realize you’ve made a terrible mistake!

While every mother’s journey is unique, motherhood typically passes through three distinct phases. The length and intensity of these phases varies greatly depending on how you acquired your child.

Nonetheless, it is crucial to realize you have no say in how your child will behave or develop over time.

You think you do.

Because you’re an idiot.

The dependent phase

You will spend the first eighteen years of motherhood keeping your child alive, and trying to mold it into a kind, functional, well-rounded human being.

This will come at the expense of your physical, emotional, and psychological health.

Tasks include providing daily sustenance and safety, imparting wisdom, and rewarding atrocious behavior. Periodically, to perpetuate utterly insane traditions, which date back centuries, you may be forced to cosplay as a rotund home invader or pixyish bone hoarder.

Most mothers begin this phase with good intentions — certainly they will avoid the mistakes their own mothers made! However, during the dependent phase you will second-guess every. single. decision. And even when you don’t, your mother will.

As will the rest of society.

And everyone on the internet.

The independent phase

If you make it through the dependent phase without being institutionalized, your child legally becomes an adult. And even though they can vote for our nation’s president while simultaneously buying a machine gun, that doesn’t mean they should be allowed to can take care of themselves.

While the first phase of motherhood will shatter your self-worth and destroy your self-confidence — not to mention your figure — phase two will come for your wallet.

Maxed-out credit cards, exorbitant college tuition, unexplained property damage, collapsing pyramid schemes, and shotgun weddings are just a few of the myriad setbacks you should expect to encounter.

If you are independently wealthy, or pull on your bootstraps super, duper hard, you may still be able to retire.

But when your child follows in your brave footsteps, and acquires their own children, you will incur the endless expenses associated with spoiling your grandkids and undermining your own children’s newfangled parenting philosophy.

Pro tip: Men live shorter lives than women, and freak accidents happen when you least expect. If your male reproductive partner’s still around during this phase, MAMDA recommends a generous life insurance policy and intense study of Murder, She Wrote.

The co-dependent phase

The final phase of motherhood could be the most difficult and will be the loneliest.

Your children grow up.

They can take care of themselves.

Really.

The pendulum swings sharply, turning you into a mopey, desperate, clawing, voyeur. To prove you’re still relevant, and not just another thing that needs to be taken care of, you will attempt to insert yourself — and your wisdom, insight, and expertise — into every facet of your child’s newly, truly independent life.

Expect resistance.

Expect to leave a lot of voicemails.

Expect to never see them on their birthdays. Or on yours.

Expect canceled plans.

Expect them to feel ashamed of you.

Expect them to establish their own family traditions. That don’t include you.

Expect them to make you immensely proud.

Expect them to resent you anyway.

Expect to need them.

DON’T expect them to need you.

MAMDA appreciates the trust you’ve placed in us.

Mothers who join our cause know our goal is not to dismantle the institution of motherhood, but to challenge the feckless indoctrination of the “Mother’s Day” fallacy.

One measly day per year — no matter how chock full of obligatory texts, deliveries of invasive plant species, half-assed attempts at preparing a “nice” breakfast, and adorable stick figure art featuring you on your worst behavior — hardly soothes the wounds suffered in the line of motherly duty. That one day of corporate-mandated admiration makes the next three-hundred and sixty-four days of thankless sacrifice all the more frustrating.

You deserve better.

We deserve better.

Moms deserve better.

“Motherhood is a phenomenal thing. It’s brutal and daring and it will suck the life right out of you. Literally.” — from the vast oeuvre of unpublished fiction by Meg Oolders, mother of two.

1. To my readers and friends whose mothers have passed on, have become estranged, or have simply not played a significant role in your young or adult life, my heart is with you and your found family this holiday week. Love is all-inclusive. Even if the “holidays” we as a species have created to celebrate it are not.