Life is messy.  So it's not surprising that the instructions on how to live it get lost in the gunk and goo of birth and after-birth.  The midwife thought I was joking when I asked her if they had been thrown away accidentally with all of the other waste one would be embarrassed about releasing so freely in any other circumstance.  

"Instructions ... that would be nice, wouldn't it?"  

She replied, patting my thigh apologetically while stitching me up, a thanksgiving turkey, completely unaware that the oven was but meters away.

I wish I'd known that kids didn't come with instructions.  There are instructions on how to grow anything, and they're usually pretty fail safe.  Citrus wants more iron, foxgloves more acid.  I can grow and have flower that sensitive of all garden belles the Gardenia, midwinter when it's 12 degrees outside, wood stove cranked to 65.  There's some certainty to following instructions and having your recipe, your garden, or anything else that with practice makes perfect, ripen and flower.

You only get the one shot with kids.  Each one is its own standard model. I always wished they'd come freeze dried.  "Just add water" when you know what to do with them, or "dehydrate and put back in the box" when you don't.  It doesn't work that way.  And to make it even more complicated each kid is different.  Even if you understand the mechanics a bit better on subsequent tries, the primary stuff of it is always shape shifting.  So specific instructions per child would have been helpful; likes, dislikes, methods to soothe, allergies, pre-dispositions; things you need to know but have to find out.

When my colicky first born, was a week old my husband caught me fluttering next to her cradle, a look of mania in my eyes, bouncing up and down.

"What are you doing?"  

He ventured kindly, fearful of the hormone-cocktail which had turned me from loving and sarcastic into the caustic banshee now bouncing witch-doctor-like over his spawn.  Lack of sleep didn't help.

"Trying to get the instructions to come out...I mean there's no way they would send something this complicated and important into the world without instructions, right ...?!!!"

Clearly I had not believed the midwife.  My husband talked me down.  

When our son was born, 4 years later, I was decidedly calmer but equally mystified about the delivery of this luxury item with no "standard operating instructions" attached.

There are instructions for everything; "To clean and polish...", "When all white pellets have dissolved ..." "For external use only ..."; but a child comes in with nothing thoughtfully printed on a protective wrapper.  Maybe the 'cradle cap' is some archaic hieroglyph still waiting to be deciphered, 'neonatal acne' a brail-like translation as yet unstudied, 'meconium' might be mined for meaning.  Those 'placentas' we gave to the tree planters and the midwives for research, maybe there was some ancient missive as yet un-decoded.

You hold that newborn in your arms and sometimes the maps surface, the genetic traces; Aunt Ida's emotional valleys, Grandpa Bill's lashes.  I'm an adopted child so even though I may not have always been able to assign a name to the topography, I was certain that my children were as intricately related to my map unknown, as they were to the grandparents on the other side.  And I could always blame the nurture of my adopted parents when nature eluded.

Then one day I realized, not in some big revelation, but gradually over time, that that's the gift of it.  Nothing preordained.  There are guidelines proffered by those who have trod the path before, but each new meat sack pushed into the world is a remix of all that's come before, and all that will be, no two snowflakes ... and that the recipe for success is in paying attention to the small clues each person gives us about who they are and what they need to blossom.  It is that simple when you think about it.  All the tools come as standard equipment.

I use to think it was a stupid thing for the universe to do, some perverse joke, that they send you this being to raise when you have yet to reach the finish line yourself.  Yes, even planned, for that urge to conceive is biological and so not necessarily logical.  Seems irresponsible, right, all of us questing toward the unknown, the parent only slightly ahead of the child in its knowledge of the world, of life, of meaning.  Our parent and grandparent before us what we have to offer as a successful plan, and that can be a terrifying thought.

Dr. Spock has good advice as does Penelope Leach and since I raised my kids in Brooklyn the hot dog vendor at the Third Street entrance to Prospect Park had a few choice words, as did the bodega owner, the cat lady two doors down, the pizza delivery man, and the homeless guy who slept on my stoop.  All of them had tidbits of truth to share with me, and once I stopped being defensive, judging the donor by the bacteria level of his or her apparel, I realized that there were instructions everywhere, the job was in choosing which ones were right for me and my kids.

My children are adults now, and whatever I did wrong seems to have had no lasting or assignable effects.  I put a lot of quarters in the 'shrink fund' against the time they would come to me with blame.  And maybe the dents and dings of my parenting will manifest long after I'm gone, untraceable to me.  But if I'd known that there would be no one map, that the journey with child, or without, is what you make of it, I might have enjoyed it earlier on, been less hard on myself ... and maybe not.  

I never did get the printed foolproof directions on how to raise happy, well adjusted, creative, kind and loving human beings. Those were the instructions I thought I wanted, but found I didn't need.  Instead, I used the ones boldly imprinted on the kind faces and the helping hands of countless friends and strangers who have aided me in launching my kids upon the world.   Much easier to read, open to interpretation, and biodegradable.

 

Nicole Quinn has written for John Singleton, Jodie Foster, HBO, Showtime and network television.  'Racing Daylight', her film directing debut, starring Academy Award nominee David Strathairn and Melissa Leo is winning prizes and praise on the road to a release on dvd in 2008.  "Slap and Tickle", a sophomore effort starring Gloria Reuben, Adam Lefevre, Linda Powell, and newcomer Caitlin Quinn will shoot in August 2008.  Her plays are published by Playscripts inc, Viking Vintage, and Smith&Kraus.