It’s difficult to find a good place to start with this one. If you were to ask me no longer than 2 years ago what my future will look like, I’m not sure kid(s) would have been part of the answer. The aspiration was there but not necessarily the plan or the concrete desire. Becoming a father was somewhere in the nebula of what the future held in store. Little did I know then.
People often say there’s also never a right time for this. And in a way, I can understand that. We’re always on the lookout for the right person, and internally judging our partners for the ‘right’ cues. We’re looking for the right job or professional maturity, economic comfort, when is ”enough” enough? We are searching for the right place to live in, a rental 1-2 bedroom or if you’re like me still living with my mom in my late 20s; not surprising, it is not ideal.
There is also the other side of the coin. Social pressure at peak performance. I went to my childhood friend’s 1-year old birthday to be at the only table reserved for non-parents, sat in the MIDDLE of the dining area. It kind of felt like being the centerpiece of a museum. Or that pesky aunt who keeps asking with supreme self-satisfaction of her prediction abilities when you’re lady is due. Every. Time. You. Meet. If you’re like us, non-parents are the new singles.
It is a massively complex decision to make rationally. Under pressure, whether it’s the aforementioned social or the mother’s biological clock. With great expectations and even more pressure as a result. Financial, emotional, or otherwise. Some people do it for the wrong reasons, I might go into that sometime.
All I can say is. I lucked out. The pandemic enveloped the world in early 2020 and we all received a good dose of home isolation treatment. I received a good dose of quality time with my, at-the-time girlfriend, presently wife. If ever there was a better trial-by-fire for relationships I’d love to hear of it. There were only two exits out of this one for us.
Barely a few months into the pandemic I knew I was with the right person beside me and before I even asked her hand in marriage I was telling her how much I’d love to be parents together. A year later, on the 1st of April. Yes, I’m serious. Marcus was born.
The bad,
It felt right. We wanted parenthood. We had extensive time in isolation to spin all the dreadful scenarios in our heads. And in the end, the sum was still positive. We read, took classes, shopped extensively. We watched with horror as that new baby category in our budget shouldered in at top-spending levels. All our worst-case scenario building and preparations helped build… a straw house of expectations. Ultimately reality huffed and puffed and blew our house down. PS: straws are still better than getting caught with your pants down. I hear everyone has a different experience here, but I’m sure no one escapes the literal shitstorm.
‘Sleeping like a baby’ completely loses its meaning (if it had any in the first place (!)). I wrote in my earlier post tips on how to set up your environment for better sleep. So much for that. It’s hard to increase sleep quality and duration with a screaming baby right next to you, grating those primordial trigger mechanisms in your head. He gets hungry through the night, has teething pains, overwhelming mental leaps, growth spurts, and poops a lot more than you’d expect. One year later, I’m still struggling with this one, and friends with even 4-year olds say it doesn’t go away for a while yet. This constant sleep deprivation, unfortunately, has an impact on every aspect of life, not to mention relationships.
Becoming a parent comes packaged with a side gig and a skill you never knew you needed or wanted: a professional diaper changer. Both I and the wife and every parent out there get the gratitude we deserve for this lovely chore. Literally getting pooped and peed on. How’s that for boss treatment on the job. Fun trivia: one baby needs approximately 2500 diaper changes/year.
Chores, chores, and more chores. I thought I was peaking at dishwashing and the weekly house clean-up. We have an extended repertoire of toy retrieval, daily reordering of the bookshelf, baby bottle washing, rinsing and sterilizing five times as much laundry. My mother will cackle with glee reading this.
Social time with friends? Less and less as time goes on and the chores and family responsibilities pile up. Each of us with our own sleeping schedules, feeding times, and regular activities. It all gradually lowers to a level where I hardly see or hear from even my closest friends for weeks on end and the common ground becomes milestone events. It takes extra effort to make it happen. Hopefully, it gets better as the kids grow older.
Even I am asking myself if there is a silver lining here. Fortunately, there is.
the good,
Reading to your kid every night or morning. Happily, I can still read my own books and he’s not making requests (yet). Paired with this one: buying children’s books. It’s a whole new world and finding the rare treasures is more fun than I ever imagined. I haven’t found any edible editions yet. Any pointers?
I take a lot more outside strolls these days. The baby loves the outdoors and we frequently get to listen to audiobooks. A boon, in our Vitamin D deficient lifestyle.
Having a kid kickstarts learning on so many levels. From the usual care to food research, education, fun activities to do with kids, the right toys, the right books. Honestly, it seems a bit overwhelming at times, especially when learning about all the ways you can screw up and scar your kid for life.
Nature has its own way of getting you high and keeping you away from depression. There is an abundance of Oxytocin – also known as the love hormone – being released all around, especially between the mother and baby, but also as the father interacts with the baby. This comes with its own set of health benefits.
Developing empathy. The one thing that the relationship between parent-children can’t work without. Chipping away at those dark personality traits one kid at a time.
A return to innocence. I’m barely getting into this, veteran parents tell me it’s the first five or six years of children. I can’t help but have my heart melted every time the little nugget smiles sincerely, gives me an awkward hug, or wholeheartedly jumps up with joy every time one of us enters the room. And we’re going to have two of them.
and the beautiful.
Life, in all its aspects, is precious and should be cherished. It can also be shorter and a lot more fragile than we expect. A recent pandemic and an even more recent invasion of a sovereign country in Europe bring about countless losses of human life. A Memento mori we did not ask for but which I hope will make us appreciate how lucky we are to be here.
We should be all the more inclined to take part in this absolute spectacle filled with myriad joyful moments that we get to experience as we watch a new human being making sense of the world. It is an unparalleled journey. Parenthood allows us to relive the wonder of first time-experiences through the eyes of our children.
Parenthood is a distraction from the endless distractions of the modern world that pushes us into the amazing universe of children. A return to a simpler and happier time in our lives. We miss out by scorning it, it is an invitation to joy.
Parenthood is also a forge, and we alongside our children are both the mold to be shaped and the blacksmith. A toil that tests our willpower and endurance daily. It’s up to us to commit to the effort and dedication required for the output to be a masterwork.
Thank you for reading.
Andrei