Shit They Don’t Tell You About Fatherhood: You’re A Wimp

After my wife and I feed the boys their last bottle for the night, they reach up indicating they want to snuggle on our shoulders. They do this every night. My wife and I sit in silence for a few minutes cuddling with whichever baby we fed. Two nights ago, as I snuggled with Wyatt, he leaned back and looked at me in the darkened nursery. I said, “I love you, Wyatt.” He replied, “I love you,” and put his head back on my shoulder. I reacted the way any grizzly father of rowdy boys would. I cried.

As a father, you’ll know your children love you. They show it with every squeal, reach or laugh. And of course, once they have a grasp of simple pronoun-verb-pronoun phrases, they’ll actually tell you they love you, even if they’re really just parroting what you tell them. I mean, seriously, I could’ve said “Lobster goggles ipecac” and Wyatt probably would’ve repeated at least some of it.

But, every one of those moments will warm the cockles of your manly heart. So, when your child actually does say those words, you’ll be overwhelmed with emotions so far from the hunter-gatherer side of the parent spectrum that you may feel the need to immediately counter it with a Jason Statham movie marathon and perhaps a KFC Double Down.

You’ll also find it isn’t just confined to your baby either. You’ll see other babies in strollers on their way to the park and silently coo at them. You’ll make funny faces at strange infants. You’ll speak gibberish to your neighbor’s newborn. Basically, you’ll show the world your masculinity can and will buckle when confronted with a drooling, poopy tot.

It’s okay. Even though the general public thinks you’re a wimp, your kid will think you’re a hero just for walking in the door. They’ll show you with a squeal, a reach and a laugh.

Shit They Don’t Tell You About Fatherhood: Being Vs. Feeling

When you first cradle your newborn in your arms after accompanying your wife through an exhausting delivery, you will feel amazement, excitement, fear, accomplishment and love. You may also feel confusion because, while you experience all these emotions, you may not feel like a father. Let there be no doubt, you are a father, but feeling like a father doesn’t always come right away. Sometimes, not for months. Please, don’t worry. Without looking through your music collection, I think I can safely say you’re not a bad person.

Despite all the TV shows and movies that suggest the arrival of a baby flips a magic switch that immediately makes us the best version of ourselves, the truth is there are millennia of biologically implanted hunter-gatherer instincts to overcome. And when you see that baby for the first time, that switch gets flipped first. I spent our first night in the neonatal wing hiding behind a blind I’d constructed out of hospital gowns and a defibrillator, just waiting for a slow orderly to pass so I could spear them with an IV stand. You can’t blame me. I suddenly had a family and they needed to be fed.

I’m not suggesting you won’t really love your baby. On the contrary, you’ll love them from that first glance. But, your love may come in the form of a typical male reaction: problem solving.

They say having a child is like being shot out of a cannon. Actually, it’s like being shot out of a cannon welded onto a top fuel dragster that’s sitting on the nose of an Imperial Cruiser. There’s no time to comprehend what happens from minute to minute, let alone from day to day. Space and time bend. Stars turn into streak of light. Physics as we know it loses all meaning.

Your life has just been upended in a way no book or friend’s story can prepare you. Plus, there’s a new life in the mix. When this kind of upheaval occurs, most guys instinctually go into fix-it mode. Every challenge you face turns into a ‘84 Ford Tempo that won’t turn over. You pop the hood and look inside. You tinker around or, if you see smoke, you run for the fire extinguisher. While this is all very natural, you still might not feel like a father. Obviously, you’ll feel like a mechanic.

That feeling of actually being a father might not sink in until you slow down and adapt to your new life. For some, it might not happen until you get a full night’s sleep. And yes, you’ll still problem solve, but instead of breaking the situation down on a whiteboard as it happens, you might just let the chaos unfold, reveling in the absurd joy of fatherhood. You’ll have plenty of time to figure out how to get that puréed carrot vomit stain out of the drapes.

Shit They Don’t Tell You About Fatherhood: TV Crime Shows

I love Law & Order. All of them — the original series, SVU, Criminal Intent — like seriously love them. If I could, I would take them on a date, maybe dinner and a Brendan Fraser movie, then park with them at a scenic spot where I might attempt some awkward heavy petting. When I got home, I would write a sonnet about them because that’s what I do when I am infatuated and why I was single for so long.

Since having kids, however, I can’t watch any incarnation of the show. I don’t mean I don’t have the time, although that is one of the hurdles. I mean I see the victims, no matter how old, as former children. Fictional children, yes, but children nonetheless. They were once little folks learning to walk and talk and then they grew up, got mixed up with a jealous software magnate or media tycoon or sex slavery ringleader and ended up dead. And that means their fictional parents will mourn them for the rest of their fictional lives.

My wife always had this problem. Before we had our boys, she had a hard time watching crime shows, even the news if it involved children getting harmed. I can still watch the news, but my enjoyment of crime shows has been permanently dented. I immediately imprint my love for my children onto these characters and it really screws me up. But wait, it gets worse.

It’s not just TV shows. Last week, my wife and her mother went out to dinner with a friend. On nights like this, when I have the place pretty much to myself, I have a set routine: the boys go to bed, then I have pizza, maybe some wine and watch a shitty movie. This time, I chose the special effects extravaganza 2012. No stranger to Roland Emmerich and his campy disaster porn, I knew what I was in for. I’ve seen all his flicks and enjoy the sheer absurdity and empty entertainment calories they provide. (The President of the United States flying a fighter jet? Leading a squadron in a dogfight with aliens? Oh, Independence Day, you’re so adorably jingoistic.)

Except this time, I was watching the spectacle as a father. By the start of the third act, I was openly weeping. Like a fucking moron.

Forgive me if I’m spoiling this for you, but since the ads made no secret that the film involves the end of the world, I guess I can mention pretty much everyone on the planet dies. Unlike Emmerich’s previous films, however, this one is full of families with young children. So, when the character Santam leans down and kisses his young son’s forehead as that 7-mile-high tidal wave races toward them, I was might as well have been watching Sophie’s Choice.

My friend irreverend recently tweeted about wiping the snot from the nose of a stranger’s child at the playground. Before having a kid, boogers grossed her out. Now, she’s a mucus wrangler. Being a parent changes you. For me, it’s made me think about the stories people tell in a different way. The stakes are higher for every TV show, movie, book, play and comic because every character was once a baby. Like mine.

Shit They Don’t Tell You About Fatherhood: Sobriety

I enjoy a good cocktail when at a fancy event. I love Central Coast wines and find they go with almost any meal. After working outside on a hot day, nothing goes down better than a cold beer. But once you have children, these things are replaced by something much more relaxing, much more addicting. Sleep.

This may not apply to everyone, but it applies to me and as much as I like to believe the contrary, I’m not all that unique, so it probably applies to at least some of you. Here’s the deal: As I get older, I’m finding even a single drink disrupts my sleep at night. And I don’t need to explain how tired new parents get… But, I will anyway. When you have a baby (or two), they interrupt your nights with any number of these things:

• Separation anxiety
• Teething pain
• Dirty diaper
• Night terrors
• Illness
• Fighting sleep
• Practicing a step routine
• Playing bagpipes

A good night’s sleep is more than the Holy Grail of parenting. It’s the Holy Grail full of water from the Fountain of Youth being held by the dead hand of Jimmy Hoffa who is sitting atop a unicorn at the gates of Atlantis.

So, those few nights during which your wee one does sleep through the night, you’ll want to be sure you haven’t done anything that keeps you from taking advantage of it. In fact, I’d wager parenting could be a pretty good rehab program if all those alcoholic and drug-addicted parents out there didn’t affect the results.

For me, the one-drink-keeps-you-up thing is relatively new and I do believe it is related to the super-hearing thing I wrote about before. During my recent “mancation,” I celebrated St. Patty’s Day the usual way — with whiskey and a corned beef and hash burrito. The former I enjoyed, the latter was like having my stomach raped by a Mexican leprechaun. That night, even though I didn’t get blasted and even though my boys were away with my wife, I couldn’t sleep. I just lay in bed thinking about how I wasn’t sleeping, getting more and more angry. Damn Irish.

Upon my return, I decided I would simply cut out all alcohol unless the occasion really called for it. That means no glass of Tolosa Lily Gil Pinot with dinner. But it does mean a good night’s sleep. And that’s something I would gladly binge on.

Shit They Don’t Tell You About Fatherhood: 1950s Housewife Syndrome

In this forum, I’ve oft referred to the “1950s Housewife Syndrome.” Contrary to what you might think, that is not another parenting blog… But, just in case, COPYRIGHT! Ha! I smell a spin-off.

No, the 1950s Housewife Syndrome encapsulates all the ethereal stresses and mental breakdowns that naturally come with the role of stay-at-home parent, which is compounded by the fact that ethereal stresses and mental breakdowns are so hard to describe. So, those 1950s housewives had trouble explaining what exactly was stressing them out and, because of that, their husbands thought it wasn’t really true. This, of course, added further frustration and I don’t know why I’m writing in the past tense because it’s me, okay? I’m talking about me.

Actually, my wife is incredibly sympathetic, but those stresses are real for all stay-at-home parents. And they will continue until we perfect a parenting robot and, even then, it’ll probably dish up annoying sass like that cheeky Rosie from The Jetsons. Shut up and do your job! You’re a robot!… Sorry.

To give you an idea how raw this sore spot gets, check this out. A family friend came over a few weeks ago. She’s a nice old lady. My wife was telling her how long it’s been since she’s had a real vacation. The old lady turned to me and asked about my last vacation, then waved her hand, dismissing her own question by saying, “Oh, you’re home all day. Every day is a vacation.” At that moment, I came criminally close to punching a nice old lady in the throat.

Here’s the kicker: Men handle stress differently than women. I’ve written before that I honestly believe women are biologically better prepared to deal with this kind of stuff. Or maybe that’s just my excuse for spending the first three months of my sons’ life muttering to myself as I hugged my knees and rocked back in forth in the corner of our darkened bathroom.

As a stay-at-home father, you must have coping mechanisms in place to deal with stress. If you don’t, figure them out fast. Don’t expect anyone to understand the way you deal with it or why you would even need to. It will only lead to more stress. Learning to work out the inherent stress in your day will make you a better parent and, yes, make your kids better kids. Just remember there are no wrong answers. Well, except locking your baby in the garage for an hour. That’s a wrong answer.