Some Lessons From Fatherhood - Year 1

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I shot Jeremy a text earlier today saying

“I’m so incredibly stumped about what to post today.  I’ve started and deleted everything a few times.  Nothing is resonant this week - Harper also got me up at 3:30 which isn’t helping this morning”

His reply:

“I get it. What about what you’ve learned a year into being a dad?”

My daughter turned one last week - which means she was born at the height of “holy shit, this is going to get really bad,” COVID panic last March.  She was actually born the Wednesday of the only week that NYC wouldn’t allow birth partners at the hospital with women delivery. So arguable the pin point center of hysteria - a hysteria that endeavored to keep me away from her birth.  As our doctor put it to me;

“Drop your wife off when she’s in labor at the front door and you’ll come back in a couple of days and wait out front to pick her up and meet your daughter.”

That wasn’t going to work for us so with about a day’s notice we switched doctors, hospitals, and birth plans.  We packed up some stuff (“Do we need to bring the diaper genie?”) and hit the road for CT where Harper was born - two and half hours after my wife first walked into Greenwich Hospital and met her new doctor.

We thought we’d be gone from NYC for a couple of weeks while things cooled down.  For all intents and purposes we still haven’t been back.

Every single decision I’ve made since we locked our Manhattan apartment door on March 25, 2020 has been through the lens of father, then husband, and then everything else.  So Jeremy’s suggesting that it’s worth a reflection was a fantastic one.  Here’s some of what sticks out from the last year.

Being present is the most important thing in the world

Sometimes I check email while I’m hanging with my daughter.  Sometimes Instagram.  There is never a good reason to do either while I should be singing the itsy bitsy spider.  Not because I feel like an idiot (though I do) but because even a baby knows when she doesn’t have my attention - and my full attention should be the minimum requirement.  I’m at my absolute happiest when I’m just where I am too.  Not thinking about when my daughter will walk, talk, etc… and not missing when she used to be smaller, used to sleep in our room, used to lay with me and just stare and babble.  I’ll see whatever is coming when I get there and I appreciated what was while it was happening.  In the worlds of a brilliant man; Happiness is rooted in the now.

I’d never before been truly tired

Holy smokes was I full of shit when I said I was tired before having a kid.  Either that I need a new word for whatever it is I felt those first few weeks.  Everyone I knew said we’d be exhausted, but no one really conveyed it.  Probably because it’s frankly inarticulable.  Kind of like the way I love my kid, which is also completely inarticulable.  You really have to “be there to see it.”

Babies are in fact people

Sometimes she’s not hungry at lunch time.  Sometimes she’s not tired at bed time.  Sometimes there’s a real reason - but most of the time; it's because she’s just not hungry at the same time in the same way everyday.  Who knew? This one took, and is taking, some real getting used to, but a lot of the time I need to relax and follow her cues because, she’s a person, not a program.

The whole enterprise is an exercise in perspective

I’m exhausted, it’s hard to juggle everything, my schedule is entirely unpredictable. It’s part of the deal and entirely worth it. Being a Dad is the best most amazing job I’ve ever had (good, bad, and ugly) and I can choose to focus on the countless amazing parts of it or the challenging parts of it. And I’m sure it will get harder - I know it will. I just hope I can continue to focus on the parts that also make it increasingly amazing.

I need to call my Mother more

Being a Dad has been real work so far - but it’s the minor leagues.  Mom’s are fucking superheroes.  I didn’t realize that as much as I should have as a son - but holy smokes. Just thinking about a day in my wife’s life makes me want to take a nap.

I thought I was pretty tough. I am not

Having a daughter has turned me into a walking puddle. My wife once joked I should try having an emotion someday…to see what it was like. Fair criticism for most of my life. One daughter later and I’m glassy eyed at literally anything that features A) a dad and B) a daughter. TV commercial, photograph, song…doesn’t matter. Total softy.

Work expands to time allotted

I mean, everything expands to the time allotted.  Work, sleep, play, exercise, everything.  I love this saying, and have always believed it.  But to Jeremy’s post from last week - talking about time in any context other than priorities is bullshit.  I get as much of what I want to do done now as I ever did - I just find the time for the things that matter.  But more on that later.