Lies, damned lies, and parenting
In February 2019 I became a dad.
Once the bewildering first few months had passed, a stark reality began to hit me: almost everything I had heard about parenting wasn’t true, and parents and non-parents alike are blatantly spreading these lies.
I don’t want to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but these falsehoods are so pernicious and widespread that I can only assume it is an elaborate campaign of disinformation being secretly funded and peddled by Bill Gates, along with senior leaders in the FBI, CIA and the military–industrial complex.
The reality I speak of, in a nutshell, is this: parenting is really fucking hard almost all of the time. Usually this is expressed by other parents through humour, but it’s no laughing matter. This is not a joke. It is now just your life.
Here are some of the most common lies:
Becoming a parent changes you
You wish. If you think the sprog comes out and you instantly turn into Tom Hanks meets Santa Claus, you’ve got another thing coming. You are still the exact same jackass you were before. Only now, you are responsible for a baby.
There are no life hacks to parenting. It will not come to you naturally any more than driving a car blindfolded will.
You get used to being tired
You develop absolutely no immunity to tiredness. You do not adapt at all. You are just exhausted all of the time.
For non-parents you can do a simple thought experiment: think of the worst you have ever felt. Now imagine feeling like that for 6 months.
The effects of sleep deprivation on your body and brain are very serious. The only positive is now you are more likely to die young, and can sleep forever.
It takes a village to raise a child
Sure, but every village has an idiot - and some have more than one. If something goes wrong they won’t look for the butcher, the baker or the candlestick maker, unless you work in one of those specific trades. You and your partner are solely responsible for this child.
It is also worth keeping in mind that all kids are different and will grow and develop at different rates. Some eat and sleep well, and some don’t. As much as you will desperately try, you have little to no control over this.
This is where the village step in.
Every other parent you meet will say they understand this difference, but a small few don’t actually believe it to be true. Because their little Johnny and little Eric happened to eat and sleep really well – and because two is a great sample size for the entire fucking history of humanity – you must, therefore, be doing something wrong.
Here is the simple test to run with parenting advice:
General advice: Great. Try it. Maybe it will work and maybe it won’t.
Specific advice (This is what you have to do): Cut these people out of your life immediately. Delete their numbers from your phone. They are not the droid you are looking for.
The job of raising a child is shared equally
This is one I’ve been guilty of pedalling myself – “I’m a hands on dad, I do my share”. Of course I always fail to mention that my share isn’t exactly 50%.
Parenting is simply not 50/50. The overwhelming societal pressure and expectation is laid squarely on mums, and this begins at birth. But this archaic and unfair tradition does lead to one mighty benefit for mums – occasionally the child will listen to what you say, and even more astoundingly, will comply with your request.
Quick reminder to all the other dads: you might not have a favourite child, but they have a favourite parent. And it isn’t you.
Parenting for dads is like playing a video game that is always stuck in hard mode. I’ve seen it with my own son – my partner might need to say something 10 times for him to comply. I could say it 10,000 times and the little guy would just look at me like ‘Not only will I not do what you say, I’m offended you even tried’.
You will have a wonderful and instant bond with your child
Well, say hello to your little friend.
If you are anything like me, then seeing your newborn baby will not be love at first sight. When my son was born I felt nothing. Sure, I felt a responsibility to keep him alive but I didn’t feel connected to him in any way.
Actually I’d go further, more than feeling nothing, I felt terrible – because for at least a couple of weeks I assumed there must be something wrong with me. Am I some emotionless robot? Maybe I’m a sociopath or a psychopath? (I googled the meaning of both but it didn’t help).
But I was sure I used to have emotions. I remembered crying when Brooks committed suicide in The Shawshank Redemption. Poor Brooks, it didn’t have to end that way. Maybe now I’d be cheering him on as he stood on the table ‘Do it Brooks, make sure the noose is good and tight’.
But that wasn’t the case. I still had emotions. I was still human.
The reality is that it takes time to feel connected to this new person in your life who constantly takes and never gives. I can’t even really pin down when or how it happened, just that over time a sort of closeness does build, and that despite him still being a total drain – financially, physically and emotionally – my life is vastly improved with him being in it.
In amongst the complex web of lies, there is also one truth:
It gets easier
As singer and glass half full connoisseur Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam remarked in his hit song Father and Son: ‘Just relax, take it easy’. And that is coming from a bloke who has 6 kids!
Parenting does get easier. Never really rewarding, but easier. For every nice moment you must still suffer through a few hundred frustrating ones. The positive is that when those nice moments do come they are so overwhelming and heart-warming, that it does, sort of, make up for everything else.
Which leads me onto one of the biggest disappointments of parenting - the almost total lack of camaraderie with other dads. Fatherhood is certainly no hood I have ever been invited to. These guys, with their toxic positivity, they all sycophantically love their kids.
Wouldn’t it just be easier to drop the charade and speak openly about the downs, as well as the ups of parenting?
Maybe it is just so ingrained that people can’t stop. Like when you hear people say ‘The day my child was born was the best day of my life’, when what they mean is ‘Having my child in my life is a wonderful thing’. The day of the birth is a horror show - the anxiety, the exhaustion, the pain. And I wasn’t the one going into labour.
I am, however, not immune to some of these fatherly displays of affection. Before our son was born there were two things I promised I would never do - 1) that annoying baby talk that everyone does, and 2) change the profile picture on my phone to one of me and my kid (nobody cares!). In reality, I started the baby talk about 5 minutes after he was born, and changed my profile picture about 2 days later. Sometimes they just get you.
As it gets easier it also gets better. Every week and month that passes he does something new and becomes more of a character. Now, I actually look forward to spending time with him.
Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t like those guys at weddings who claim they are marrying their best friend. (Your wife is also your best friend? Loser). It’s not that kind of relationship. I love my kid much more than I love parenting my kid.
Most of the time I’m just scrambling around trying to figure out what he wants, and what it is I need to say or do. I don’t have all the right answers. But I’m starting to think good parenting isn’t about having the answers - it’s about knowing you will run through walls to find out what they are.
Finally, back to Cat/Yusuf, who helpfully adds a line in the same verse of that song - a handy addendum if you will – ‘Look at me, I am old, but I'm happy’.
So it does get better, eventually.