Everyone Makes Parenting Sound Awful—But It’s Not
There’s a not-so-subtle gesture wives give their husbands when they’re about to do something inappropriate, rude, or stupid.
I’m about to cross off all three.
The tap tap tap continues as I raise my hand higher, indicating I have a question. Each tap grows in intensity, but I ignore the repetition now beating furiously into my thigh. The nurse at the front of the classroom continues talking, but then catches sight of my hand and nods, “Yes sir?”
My wife grimaces. I eye the other men in the room knowing they’re just as curious. I see a few still whispering and watch their wives smack them too. No bother. I’ll be the spokesman.
“Were you joking?” I ask.
The nurse frowns, and before she can ask what I meant, I press on. “About our wives pooping themselves while giving birth. That doesn’t actually happen… does it?”
The nurse chuckles, and surveys the room. Other men nod; they have the same question. “No joke, everyone,” she tells the room. “It’s quite common. Remember, they’re pushing with all their might to get a baby out. Your doctors won’t bat an eye, and the nurse will scoop it out of the way as if nothing happened.”
There are murmurs across the room from couples in our birthing class. My pregnant wife raises an eyebrow with her lips pressed firmly together. She’s annoyed. “There. You happy now?”
“Just don’t poop on me, okay?” She smacks me again.
After class, we talk in the hallway with another couple. My wife rubs a hand over her tummy, while the other woman follows suit. Were I to rub my head, we’d have a great game of Simon Says going on.
“There’s just so much you don’t know when you get pregnant,” The woman says while rubbing her stomach in a circular motion. “Like the… poop thing. I swear, all we ever hear are the horror stories about parenting and pregnancy. The internet doesn’t help either.”
I nod, thinking of what people have texted, said, or joked about. You’ll never sleep again! Toy-pocalypse! No sex! No money! Poop! Vomit! INSANITY! POSTPARTUM DEPRESSION! Haha, but really, kids are the greatest (even if they ruined my life).
“It’s sad,” my wife remarks. “People only told horror stories when we got married too. These days you’ll rarely hear the good or beautiful even if moments in marriage and parenting are hard.”
When we take my daughter home from the hospital a few days after her birth, my wife and I feel like fake parents. We’re certain the fraud police will show any moment asking for the baby.
“I’m sorry sir, you’re obviously not capable of caring for another human.”
“Haha! Ya got me!” I’d remark as I hand over my child.
When you become a parent, you’re not sure what to expect from the fragile human you’re now responsible to keep alive. Hell, all I knew of parenting was from owning a cat. Tummy rubs and tuna? Will that work?
It doesn’t.
When you don’t know how to parent, you ask other people. I braced for the worst given the perpetual advice people hand out about how you should parent. Scrolling Facebook and Instagram for parenting advice is an exercise in stupidity, but I went looking anyway — more to amuse myself. While scrolling, I stumbled across a friend’s photo of his wife and two kids — both under the age of 3 — traveling abroad in Europe. Ah, yes. The white-people-insta-hashtag-blessed-life I thought. However, I remembered his family didn’t have much money and worked odd jobs. Turns out they saved for a long time to go on the trip. Curious, I approached him at the gym wondering why he’d take two toddlers on a thirteen hour flight. Didn’t he want to pawn his kids off on Grandma and enjoy alone time with his spouse? After all, every toddler travel story I’d heard — or seen — involved kids losing their shit on a plane.
“We want our kids to be part of our adventure,” he told me. “We take them places to learn how to behave, interact, and so they can tangibly see our love for them. By inviting them into our story, one day they’ll create their own.”
His simple bit of wisdom changed everything. Granted, I still didn’t grasp parenting, but I practiced and took chances — especially the day we took my daughter to our favorite brewery. When you share that tidbit with some parents, they’ll eye you like you’re one step away from offering a kid black tar heroin. For whatever reason there’s a mentality to appear flawless as a parent. Organic food, the best schools, every soccer game, Disney World, exercise and outdoors, new clothes; the list is endless. It’s as if “dad” and “mom” become the sole identity, and so those backhanded comments about never having a life again become self-fulfilling prophecies. The brewery became a way to give that mentality the middle finger.
Soon we found most of what society was preaching was subversive lies. Parenting is hard, but it gets worse if you’re only looking for the bad instead of embracing the little joys afforded each day.
My daughter is obsessed with rocks, nails, pennies, nickels (which she calls “nipples”), fake jewelry, and plastic cupcakes (don’t ask). She calls them her “treasures.” Most of it is old junk we’ve found around the house, but they hold infinite worth to her. I think there’s an inherent beauty she’s teaching me with her junk treasures — little things carry more joy than you realize.
As she’s grown, my favorite memories haven’t been milestones like walking or talking. It’s small things that make my heart swell. The times when she breaks into song and dance, or when we cuddle watching a movie as she drinks “special daddy pop” (and then drives us nuts from the sugar high).
There’s also the laughter and humor of just being a parent. For instance, when parents find out I broke my daughter of thumb-sucking in two days, they’re desperate to discover my secret.
At first they think I’m kidding — but no — I’m serious. I leveraged the power of an invisible wizard we pretend fight to break her habit. I can’t say I recommend the tactic, but it worked, and we laugh every time we tell the story. Most giggle too, but I’m sure some parents wonder the cost we’ll pay in counseling later. I, however, would rather embrace the laughter, joy, and missteps of parenting than living in a perpetual state of fear or outrage. More and more, I’ve discovered I don’t need other parent’s validation. I need my daughter’s.
Maybe I’m not a good father if I don’t adhere to our new parental standards. Perhaps I should be more concerned about how I parent and what tactics everyone else shares online. But every time I listen to that siren call, my daughter speaks a deeper truth.
Once a week, she’ll grab my face, wrap her arms around me and say, “You’re a good daddy.”
And that’s all the validation any parent needs.
Everyone Makes Parenting Sound Awful—But It’s Not
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