So as joyous as it has been, I have been pretty open with how challenging I found parenting, especially at the start. But I have to admit it has progressively got easier as both my daughter and I have grown a lot in the past year (I think she more than me, but that is probably debatable). But this actually tricked me into a false assumption, which took a bit of time to get my head around. Certainly by Hannah’s first birthday, I had to admit things were incomparably easier than twelve months earlier. She was mobile enough to get around using a combination of walking and crawling, but never wanted to go too far from one of her parents. She could use her hands to manipulate toys and to feed herself. From early on she had the confidence and courage to spend time away from us with other adults. Not only was she receiving wonderful care at childcare, where she was thriving, but we could also confidently leave her with grandparent s so we could go out in the evenings. I was also much more capable and confident in my parenting so situations which would have previously been quite stressful became more manageable; and with Hannah sleeping through the night, I was probably getting more sleep than before she was born.
For all of this, and notwithstanding the incredible happiness Hannah brought to me life, in some ways it almost felt harder, or at least harder than it should. Whilst acknowledging it hadn’t been easy I had always felt we had been doing pretty well in facing the challenges of parenthood. But out of nowhere I started to feel like I was struggling more than I should, which was a little frustrating. I realised all of the changes I had observed, some pretty major, had sucked me into thinking life was about to get easy. But it only got easier. This should have been fine and something to appreciate, but I had let my expectation get ahead of reality and created an unrealistic idea. It actually took a couple of weeks to identify why I suddenly felt like I was struggling all over again and to curb my instinctive frustration. Once I’d kind of reprogrammed by expectations, I was able to see that yes, parenting had got a hell of a lot easier and (somehow) even more fun. I just needed to step back and see it. It’s an easy trap to fall into and one I’ll have to be mindful of in the future as there is no guarantee I won't do it again. I’ve no doubt that in many ways, parenting will continue to get easier as my daughter develops the capacity to look after herself (and then perhaps get hard again as I discover just how strong-willed she really is), but I just need to remember that however hard it is, it is far outweighed by how much happiness comes with it.
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Dad thoughtsI haven’t had much chance to write much over the last couple of weeks. This has largely been to do with the birth of my daughter, which has had a profound impact on my life. As a corollary of this, a fair amount of my thoughts and observations may shift to the new topic of parenthood. I’m not planning on stealing from Sonia Kruger’s playbook and use the phrase, “as a parent,’ to make claims with no factual basis, but parenthood is a complex and fascinating area so I will be making a few comments about my experience of it. Archives
October 2020
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