Not that I really expected it to be easy, and no one ever said it was, but I still wasn’t really prepared for it. At some level I was kind of terrified at this great unknown adventure that was about to begin. And academically, I understood I was going to be a lot busier and would suddenly have a lot more things to worry about. And whilst I had received no shortage of warnings about the joys of sleepless nights, I remained kind of optimistic. This optimism was probably born of being an older first-time dad and having seen many of my friends have kids before me. Almost every new parent that I had asked about it had given a slightly wan smile and admitted that it was a bit tiring, but great. Most of them lied a little. Now before anyone takes offence, I better backtrack on that. Obviously I’m not calling any of my wonderful friends liars. But we tend to make light of our troubles when we are asked about them. I suspect everyone I asked inadvertently gave me a rosier picture because they didn’t want to sound like they were whinging and I have probably done the same myself at times. Of all the new parents I spoke to, only my mate Ash gave me a true picture of how hard the first few months would be.
It wasn’t the sleeplessness that was my biggest challenge- Admittedly we literally couldn’t get our daughter to sleep in the basinet for the first six weeks– but felt like I was handling that. Maybe I wasn’t quite functioning at 100% but the tiredness was offset by excitement and happiness. It seemed a fair trade. Life got a whole lot more serious too. I’d taken for granted how many of my day to day decision making events were free of significant consequences. All of a sudden, every decision seems to impact so powerfully on the life of a previous little creature (there is a reason I don’t have pets either), but luckily for me, my wife was unbelievable in this regard. Calm, intuitive efficient and knowledgeable. Whatever I was uncertain about, I could workshop with her, which gave me a great feeling of security. I was also lucky to have a midwife friend, Mumma Bear, who was incredibly patient and giving with her time and expertise. And once again, I had kind of anticipated this level of anxiety. I am the ultimate worrier (not a WWE character of a similar name- note the difference in spelling and lack of capitals- just someone who worries a lot about possible consequences of my actions) so I expected to be agonising over the most banal of decisions. What I found the hardest and was least prepared for in the early weeks was the unrelenting pressure to stay on top of things and the disappearance of anything resembling personal time. The simplest activities had be pretty carefully war-gamed and prepared for, leaving little time to get anything else done. I lost a couple of Kg in the first two weeks from just not finding time to eat enough (have since reversed that and the ‘dadbod’ is developing nicely). But despite feeling busy, I also felt kind of useless a lot of the time. I had entertained grand intentions of 50/50 co-parenting, but especially in the first month, my daughter had other ideas and there were often times when the only time I could stop her crying was to give her back to her mother. I like to consider myself a pretty calm, patient and tolerant person. However, I’m a bit embarrassed to recount that there a number of times when I felt like shouting at my crying baby in the first month. I was doing all I could, but she just kept crying. As I said, I’m not proud of that impulse, but at least I can say I resisted the urge. But in my tired state, it was far more traumatic than I expected and gave me some insight into how hard it must be for parents with more difficult babies or less support than I had. Hard as it is, for all the change and uncertainty it brings; I love being a parent. In her short life, my daughter has enriched my life beyond what I could have hoped. But I won’t tell you it is easy. Because it isn’t.
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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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