Parenting Through The Fog
Stop me if you’ve heard this before:
I used to do that back before I had kids.
Back before I had kids, I was…
I was so… until I had kids.
We used to do that all the time before we had kids.
I would…
I would’ve…
I could’ve…
…but I have kids.
I’m sure you can fill in the details with things you’ve been told by friends, acquaintances, or even your own parents. Maybe you have said things just like this. I don’t blame you. It’s the water we swim in.
Before I had kids, I was terrified that I would lose myself in the process. It seemed like every grown-up was cooler, happier, and even somehow wiser before they had kids. I heard a steady stream of statements like the ones above. Adults always seemed to be clinging to past glories and reveries of bygone freedoms. I now know that these freedoms and glories were likely an illusion. What was really missing was the purpose and passion that so many claimed to willingly give up “for” their kids. I always found it cringe when these same adults who seemed to be complaining would tell me, “It’s worth it.”
Worth it?! Is giving up passion and purpose worth it because now you have kids? So, not only will I sacrifice my life project and live only for my kids, but I will think it’s necessary and desirable. I vowed that would never be me, and like so many people in our time, I spent years fearing children and parenthood.
Then, as I got older, I learned about the gender care gap. I learned that many men do not lose their careers, callings, purpose, and passion. They continue on as their female counterparts wave goodbye from the house. This obviously struck me as sexist and deeply unfair. But I learned young that this, too, has a huge cost. I was told that working men work for their families, but company men advance at the expense of their relationships, health, and happiness. “Don’t chase a career,” they said. “Be a family man.”
At school and elsewhere, however, they told us to go for our dreams, strive for excellence, be the best. This seemed to me like a rock and a hard place. You’re supposed to go for it and get to the top, but if you do, you end up in a rat race that sucks everything else dry and only serves up the illusion of a good life. Of course, the conundrum is much worse for women. The double standard harshly judges both stay-at-home and career moms as wasting their potential or selfishly climbing at the expense of their families.
I looked at all these mixed messages and doublebinds, which seemed exhausting. I used to think: Why would anyone have kids?! I even thought my own parents must have been fools to have me. Who would willingly enter into such a rigged game?
What is more, so many adults seemed to only love the parts of parenting that had already passed or yearned for what had not yet passed. Young parents told me they couldn’t wait to sleep and get a moment to themselves. “It’ll be better when they’re older,” they’d say, while older parents yearned for babies and toddlers: “I wish they were small again!”
After I met my nesting partner, I kept putting off the time for when we should start trying to have kids. I recall wanting children (in theory), but not for 5–7 years. Strangely, “5–7 years” eventually passed, and I was no more ready. I was terrified, but I knew deep down that these tropes about kids were dead wrong — the product of a dysfunctional culture, not ironclad truths. So, we went for it… three times! Now, we have three daughters under four (11 weeks, 20 months, and just under 3.5 years old). It is hard, of course. Bringing new humans into the world is undoubtedly the most challenging thing I’ve done and continue to do. Still, I find my experience quite unlike the ones I feared all the way until at least two weeks after my first daughter was born. After panicking and going through a totally understandable and probably relatable existential crisis, I realized that there are many paths. The prevailing folk wisdom I came to know is but the expression of a very specific cultural experience, and being that we do not quite fit into that culture — we never have — our individual and shared experiences are in every way dissimilar, not just from most of the older folks who (unconsciously) warned me, but even from our peers.
More than three years in, I am still bombarded regularly by statements like “Enjoy it while it lasts” by thirty-something parents and sixty-something ones alike. I’m sure you know what they mean when they say “lasts.” They’re talking about the ease of young kids. Since I have three daughters, I regularly encounter people who gush over their cuteness, only to warn me of this or that impending disaster once they reach what I now conclude is every age. “It’s great when they’re babies, but just wait,” they say, or, when they find out they’re all girls… it’s just too cringe to post. You get the gist.
In a nutshell, my life was, is, or soon will be consumed by the kids, and I will never have peace again, but “Aww, they’re the cutest!” and “Kids are the best!” That is, until they’re teenagers, leave the house and never call, or some other thing. Since I still have a newborn, everyone knows I have no time for myself. I never sleep and don’t even take showers, but soon it’ll be better…
…until it’s worse?
It’s no wonder so many people are confused, fearful, and often downright hostile towards kids. Now that it’s fashionable to say, “I hate kids,” I also hear that regularly, even though people know I am a dad, which I find rude, ridiculous, and anti-social. Do you hate ALL kids? What a statement! It’s also false. Most of these people don’t even know any (or very few) kids. What they dislike, or “hate,” is the culture reiterating tropes like the ones that opened this piece, and I agree.
It’s a mess.
It’s wrong.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
For a growing minority, it isn’t.
So, if you’ve heard these things and rejected them or yearned to reject them, Walking With Baby is for you. This publication is dedicated to refusing the false choices society presents. It’s about building a better way forward together. It’s about creating a new culture where we can fully actualize and live extraordinary lives with our kids.
