This may not be up for very long.

[qcontinuum]

I may well come to my senses and delete it later. I've already blocked it out so no one from the Continuum can read it (of course, anyone more experienced than amanda_the_q could break that block, but they won't be interested enough to bother since they don't know I am essentially being hysterical). Why I want to broadcast my troubles to any number of random mortals I don't know. Except that mortals, having that whole, you know, mortality thing going, reproduce all the time. So it's much more likely they've have some clue or at the least some ability to sympathize. Trying to get sympathy out of the Q Continuum is like trying to get matter out of a black hole. Without going via subspace or any other universe.



I am going to screw this up. I know it. Kathy said that all parents are convinced they're going to screw up, which strikes me as fairly astonishing-- how do mortals continue to exist if you're all so lacking in confidence about your ability to reproduce properly?-- but while I took comfort in that for about 30 seconds, I quickly realized that the difference is mortal parents *think* they're going to screw up. I, however, know it. Because how could I not? Mortal parents have role models to follow. They have had parents of their own, they know people of their species who have kids, they remember what it was like to be a kid, they can look around them and *see* children of their species. I can't. I'm first. And first things are prototypes and they always get screwed up. The things I do wrong are supposed to blaze a trail for those that come after me to do things right.

But this is a Q. Not a project. Anything I do to screw him up lasts forever, and I won't be able to fix it after the fact.

why why why why did I ever think I was fit to be a parent? No, I didn't think. That was why. I didn't know, I didn't think out the implications, I just wanted to do something that had never been done before to prove that change could be beneficial to the Continuum. The Party of Order (which wasn't called that then, they were just the folks in charge) were so terrified that change meant death and Q killing himself DID NOT HELP AT ALL and his whole argument that we needed to die for the Continuum to grow just scared the living daylights out of most of us, including me, and I had to find a way for change to mean something good so I picked having kids. Because it's the opposite of dying. We couldn't stagnate if we produced children, right? Right?

I am so screwed. Why didn't anyone TELL me you can't have kids as a political statement? Kathy, you should have known, why didn't you warn me what an idiot I was being? Okay, I'll be fair, you tried. I didn't listen because I never listen because I always know everything until I put my foot in it and then I didn't know everything after all, did I. And I didn't know. Well, I couldn't have known. But I should have *thought*!

...I love him, and I want everything to be perfect for him, and I'm not any *good* at this, I don't think my *species* is cut out for this but *especially* not me, it'd be different if I, you know, had an ounce of nurture and compassion in my personality but my idea of compassion is to terrorize people into fleeing their planet into deep space because they're too stupid to realize a supernova is coming and if I said it nicely they just wouldn't do anything about it, which you should not do with kids, although I do it, and it's wrong and I know that but I don't know what's *right* to do, and I probably shouldn't be ignoring the half a million little things he does wrong that I told him not to do and then blow up on the half a million and one, or tell him I'm going to throw him in a black hole if he does it again and then he does it again and I don't throw him in a black hole, and maybe I shouldn't *be* throwing him in a black hole either, and I don't *know*! Q's right, I'm wrecking this kid, but she's no goddamn help, what kind of an answer is it to run away? At least I'll look back and know I didn't run away. Although maybe I should. Maybe he'd be better off if I abandoned him, because the only Q who'd take him in would be one with some modicum of compassion and maybe be better at this than I am except I *know*, exactly, what he felt when his mother left him and I can't *do* that to him even if it was for his own good and maybe it's not. I just don't know. I'm an idiot. I'm totally lost. This isn't what my species does.

I'm sorry, son. I'm going to ruin everything. I don't want to screw you up but I will. I shouldn't have had you when I should have known I'd suck at being a father. I'm sorry.

Comments

I may be repeating myself.

[qcontinuum.livejournal.com]

I think I told you this already, but I like to hear myself talk. Or read myself talk as the case may be.

It's a good idea, and I'll probably do it or something like it, but I don't know if that will be enough. Most species iron out the kinks in their reproductive strategy or they die out. We seem to have social instincts that aren't compatible with the needs of our children, and it's never come up as a problem before because no one's ever had one before. (Well, not within the Continuum. And outside the Continuum you have to work with that species' defaults.) We don't have any difficulty with the reproductive instinct; despite the fact that we don't need to reproduce, assorted Q have wanted to for a very long time (which is where people like Amanda come from). It's the things you need to do to *raise* a child that are hard. And I just don't want my kid to have to suffer for being a prototype. I mean, we'll all figure it out eventually, but eventually might be too late for him.

I dunno. Talking to you and Data helped. I'm still not certain I can do this but at least I'm not panicking about it anymore.