Balance

Pop culture has a way of depicting life for new dads thusly: 

Male childless friend: "So, you just do this now instead of [insert relevant dude stuff; i.e. football, drunkenness, strip clubs]

New dad: [Looking frazzled and red-eyed, yet smiling wisely] "Yeah dude."

MCF: Uhhh cool I guess? Ok I'm gonna go and do [relevant dude stuff].

ND: [More wise smiling] Oh, dear friend. You'll understand...some day. [Solitary dad happiness tear, audience "awwwws".]

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Before Mina was born, I promised myself several things. I promised that although having a child must change so much in your life, I wouldn't let it change who I am at my core. I promised that I wouldn't let it change my relationship with my wife. Or my relationship with my family. Or with my friends. I promised I would still care about work, love the outdoors, love baseball, keep working on my writing, find time for my hobbies, keep my sense of humor, and keep the weight off. 

Mostly, I didn't want to become pop-culture dad. A dad who constantly talks about how much being a dad changes you. A dad who just doesn't have time for himself anymore. A dad who makes a show of sacrificing his old life in favor of total and all-encompassing devotion to this new endeavor. I am pretty sure that hose dads are liars. They lie about how much they love their new lives. They lie about the resentment they feel. They lie about how much they are enjoying all this. They don't tell the truth because the truth is way more nuanced. It's too complicated to be boiled down to a half-hour sitcom. It's way too complicated to be boiled down to a Subaru ad tagline. It's fucking hard and it's fucking awesome and it's fucking hilarious and it fucking sucks.

I'd like to do my tiny part to shed some light on the truth of parenthood, so let's go through some of my promises to myself and see how they shake out. I think I've kept some, and others I have abandoned wholesale. Self-evaluation and self-analysis are always hard, but I'll try to be as honest as I can.

Promise One: Relationship with My Wife

Oh man, starting with a toughie right off the bat. Ok here goes. Yes, having a child has massively changed my relationship with my wife, for both better and worse.

My incredibly unsophisticated take on having a spouse is that you don't just have one relationship with a husband or wife. You have AT LEAST five, and probably far more. My wife is my:

- Closest friend

- Roommate

- Business partner

- Therapist

- Personal assistant (Yes, I am hers too)

If any items on that list sound sappy or saccharine, let me assure you, ALL of them come with major benefits AND pitfalls. There are times when I just haaaaate having a roommate. Especially a female one (oh god now there are two!) But to balance it out, there are days when I thank the universe for providing me such a capable business partner. Now though, we've added a new relationship: this woman is also the mother of my child, and that takes up like 91% of all of her time.

I miss being able to read together and chat before bed. That's out the window because, and I feel like I have mentioned this before, the baby wakes up from the noise of a single blade of grass blowing in the wind in the backyard. But, with that bonding time now gone, we talk more when we have the chance: at the dinner table, or during one of those insanely rare moments when the babe is napping and we aren't feverishly trying to cook/clean/shower before she wakes up.

It's crazy to me that the ultimate couples bonding experience, having a child together, comes with such massive potential to drive two humans apart. I could write pages and pages about this, and probably will at some point; but my overall takeaway is that having a child changes just about every element of your relationship with your spouse. But, if you can weather the stress and the sleep deprivation and the occasional fits of unexpected rage that fills you up, and come out the other side unscathed, you will be fine. My baby is only five months old, so what do I know, but I feel like it has already made us stronger.


Promise Two: Relationships with Family and Friends

There is a whole lot to unpack here as well. Most of it boils down to this: unless your close family members or friends have had babies of their own within the last five years, they will have no idea what the fuck you are going through. It's crazy! This is going to sound an awful lot like a complaint, but I promise it's not. It's just an observation: People that fully understand what is currently going on in your life are incredibly rare. These are the people that don't offer half-baked advice, just support. The people who want to see you, but know that it 100% must be on your terms (and the terms dictated by the baby's eating schedule pooping schedule peeing schedule sleeping schedule crying schedule and scheduling schedule). The people who want to see your baby because they care about you, not because they are mad that you haven't invited them over yet. These are generally the people who don't post shit about your baby on facebook.

Everyone else just cannot, on any level, comprehend how you are feeling. People who have older kids seem to forget evvvvverything about having a baby. What is this selective parenting amnesia?! Sign me up. On the other hand, people who have never had kids have even less of a clue, and most of them can only see the multitude of ways in which the new baby is affecting your ability to go to happy hour after work or brunch on the weekends.

I say all this feeling like a massive ingrate, because my wife and I are fortunate to have some absolutely incredible friends in our lives. But, most of them don't have kids, and in fact many of them may never have kids. It's impossible for me to explain parenthood to most of them, and I don't really have any desire to do so anyway. Nor, I am sure, would they be interested in hearing about it. I am not here to convince people to have kids, nor am I here to justify our decision to have one. Personally, I think it's awesome and worth it, but I blame nobody for passing on this particular biological imperative.

Because new parenthood often gets boiled down to the equation: baby = sleep deprivation + diapers, most people feel that they can sympathize with our current plight. We have all been through tough times in our lives, and you kind of just have to deal with stuff and take life as it comes. But, it turns out, having a baby is WAY WAY harder than anything I have ever had to go through, and it seems to just take forevvvvver until things get easier. Everyone keeps telling me that time is going to fly, and all of a sudden she is going to be a teenager, then before I know it, she will be having kids of her own. Well the last five months have absolutely crept by for me, and at this point I WOULD LITERALLY KILL SOMEONE to have a teenager right now. Teenagers sleep until noon and do their own thing and can go to the movies and give me some time to my damn self. Teenagers sound fuckin' sweet.


Promise Three: Hobbies, Passions, Career, Etc.

At this point I feel like I have written plenty of words, so I'll leave all this for a Part II!

Stay tuned. If you have made it this far through my stream-of-consciousness baby fever dream, you might as well stick around.