In the middle of a brief pause from a hectic, breathless morning doing my best to ready my family for the day, my minds eye focused in on the last few months and I thought, “phew, this has been pretty darn intense”. My life is so different than what it once was.
Like most things in life, it is hard to appreciate the personal reality of a situation that someone describes to you. I’ve had many parents over the years describe situations with their kids, and I realize now I never came anywhere close to empathizing with the personal impact they may have felt in those situations. I have experienced some of this now in my own way, the relatively high severity of some of these situations, and when you’re tired, out of ideas and running on empty, things can seem pretty grim.
But somehow with parenting, it can all turn around in an instant, a breath, a look, a gesture, or a light touch of a hand or finger you helped bring in to the world. My partner said recently with incredible strength, “i’m just going to do what I want to do, and not worry about how hard it might be, we’ll make it work”. And that's just it — it always can be made to work, given you’ve got enough juice in the tank.
Our kids are a little over 2 and 3 months old, a daughter and son respectively. I’ve been off work for (wow!) almost 4 months. I took a couple months off with our first, and this time around have the incredible fortune to take at least a year off of work. Lets just say the immersiveness of this current parenting stint is significantly more intense than anything I experienced when we had just one kid in the house.
I’m of course speaking only for me, my role as the dad typically being more supportive in nature, but now with another little one I’m filling in more primary responsibilities with my daughter. And in fine cliche fashion, I think my daughter is the absolute best child ever to be born in to the world in all of time. She’s just incredible. But boy is she getting tough. My energy can go from full bars to fully depleted in about 5 minutes with her, but then with a slight shift in focus or activity can be completely full again in an instant. At the end of the day I am totally spent, little left in the tank for socializing or learning, mostly just keen to veg and get a lacklustre night’s sleep so I can enjoy the next day as much as possible. Because every day, every moment, really is a gift, right?!
Parenting to me seems to be following that universal principle, what you put in you get out. And I’m grateful for this up until this point, as from what I have heard and what I believe, parenting will not always be this way. At a certain point reciprocity may come to an end, temporarily if not permanently, and you need to pat yourself on the back and carry on knowing you’re not in it for kudos or endless cuddles.
Our daughter started daycare a few weeks ago. Even up to the last day of the first week, dropping her off, I sobbed uncontrollably leaving the place as it is so hard to not want to comfort her as she’s clinging at you pleading for you to stay. People have done this a zillion times, and will do it a zillion more times. Knowing this doesn’t make it easier when I do it.
Before I had kids a wise man told me you actually get better scheduling your life and putting your time towards the highest priorities when you have kids, because of the constraints they place upon you. I get this for sure and in general I love the “constraints enable more” argument. I am starting to see a small glimmer of this taking shape; but it sure doesn’t come for free. There is an increased motivation and efficiency that comes from wanting to set a good example, be a good person, and have the foundation of my own needs met to ensure all that example setting is honest and runs deep (because if it is just words I know my kids can see right through it). But it takes considerable inertial energy to make the necessary changes. I guess that's where the growth comes in. And if you’re living your life to maximize your thankless growth dollars, there aren’t many bets you can make with greater growth guarantees than parenting.
Having said that, I have such huge respect and admiration for all the parents that went through the pandemic with kids at home. I could not imagine working and doing primary childcare during this time, I would be parenting poorly, and working even more poorly. To not be able to give something your best is a colossal demotivator, and the pandemic forced this situation on many folks (not to mention getting COVID and also having to deal with that). That is one growth opportunity I’m thankful to have mostly missed out on.
To do anything well requires focus, and I cherish my own personal focus time. I’m naively learning you cannot force a two year old to focus, and this naturally means less focus time for me. I’ve had limited success with my daughter repeating the word focus as she ascends our staircase, but that’s where it ends. And when she’s around, she is my priority, and soaks up the energy in the room; in the best possible way of course. In the kind of way that when she catches a ball, or does something for the first time, why would I have wanted my own focus time to spend a few hours reading a book or researching something when, I have her?
I worry my mind won’t bounce back, given more space to focus. Somewhat surprisingly, tranquil acceptance washes over me, and I don’t spend too much time worrying about this.
Don’t get me wrong, this post isn’t about how “parenting is the best thing ever, I love being a dad, it’s changed my life and geez I wish I did this when I was 22 and everyone should do it”. I do love being a dad. I am so damn grateful for getting to be one, and for the fortune we’ve had so far in our journey. It’s damn hard. It’s damn rewarding. I’m looking forward to the future, where things may be a bit more settled. I’m already missing the past, and some of the moments and growth phases that were just that, phases. The lightness, the innocence, the simplicity.
Our little one is still sharing our bed, and yet I take on very few nighttime responsibilities. My partner does everything. Sometimes at night I wake up, in a half sleep state, and see her soothing our little one back to sleep, taking him for a diaper change, or holding him upright after feeding because of his reflux. I’m in awe and have so much respect for my partner. And I feel shame I don’t do more. Yet I usually lie there still, blaming my above normal need for sleep on my ineptitude. She is stronger than I, is my terrible justification.
The struggle to avoid comparison to other parents lurks around every corner too. Not unique to parenting of course — but I’m working to consider the utility of comparison itself, when and how it can be helpful, and casting aside any other urges to do so. They’re aren’t many useful applications, but I’m hoping in later years it can help assess how wonky our kids’ experiences will be if we stray too far from the fold.
And what of “it takes a village”. Our nuclear families aren’t organized for this anymore, at least not in my circles with my upbringing in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. We’re also, kinda old to be having families, and while we do rely on and are incredibly appreciative of our parents and extended family that jump in to help us regularly, they’re even lesser spring chickens, and parenting benefits from energy.
My mind occasionally drifts in to what life would be like without kids. Waiting as long as I did is a good signal that I wasn’t sure I wanted kids for much of my life. I value my free time, my alone time, my autonomous time, and was fearful of losing it all. Now I covet some of my childless friends’ projects and accomplishments, in awe of their ability to be as carefree and mobile as they are. This coveting doesn’t surprise me, I know me, and I knew I’d longingly be gazing on these activities with envy. It is also easy to stumble across other examples of sadness or at least partial longing at the lack of children in some people’s lives that may have desired them. Parenting is not a binary choice to have or not. You place intentions, and things may or may not turn out how you like, that is life. And the grass is always greener when things are hard. I’ve had a few moments as well that are fantastic, and I try to reflect and see how some of those moments I covet aren’t actually all that interesting given what is in front of me. It works all ways.
Being social has taken on a new unexpected dimension; how intentional should I be about guiding conversations to include or not to include the topics of kids? Read the room, and gush if it feels right? Always meter yourself? Always ensure to ask parents about what else they have going on, even though prior to having kids some of my parental friends said “ahh, its pretty much just the kids” (as an aside, lines like that provided some of the aforementioned fear of loss of autonomy). I haven’t really rotated on this topic too much, but I deeply long for a rich life surrounded by interesting people, that do interesting things, as I’d like to consider myself an interesting person doing interesting things… so at some point, I would like to reflect and challenge myself to ensure I’ve got the right balance here.
Our oldest is just past 2, but as recent as this evening, I’m realizing I’ll need to sharpen my own saw with more attention paid to my reactions, and potential learning opportunities for our kids. I can be a laxidasical twit sometimes, I know this. I don’t want my kids to be this way, I’d love to see them be far more conscientious, empathic. I need to do a lot better, for them, and for our family (and of course for me too… parenting being one of the most selfish acts of all).
I’m learning too that my memory is fleeting. With our son, I forgot what it was like to have a baby — its only been two years, but how they move, sound, poop, act, was all replaced with exactly how my daughter has evolved to this point. This if anything teaches me that so much of what passes will be forgotten, it’ll mostly only be the trauma and elation that is remembered well, and even those memories likely twisted a bit. So many moments to be had, and almost every one can be shifted to be viewed in different ways; the bad ones can go from “omg this is hell will this ever end” to, “hey we’re doing this by choice, and we’re lucky to be here”. And the good ones can go from “geez i really would like to get back to get supper on and then the laundry and shit i forgot to do the sheets” to “my daughter is on the swing right now, and there will come a time when you push her, and that will be the last time you ever push her on a swing so… enjoy this now”. Because every day, every moment, really is a gift.
