Forecasting Fatherhood
Without fail, the most common question I see from guys about to be new fathers is “What do I expect?” The second is “What’s some essential things I should know?”
Both of which I attribute to not following my blog closely enough. Because if hindsight is 20/20 then older fathers are the Hubble Space Telescope of Fatherhood.
So, what to expect? Chaos my friend, sheer chaos. Sure I can elucidate on how you’ll feel the moment that child is brought into the world, I can give some basic pointers on how they’ll act, eat, sleep, burp, walk, talk, bite, slobber, smell, scream, and a million other things but it will matter little because we’re of two different perspectives and it differs markedly when you’re the one in that moment and not reading about it.
Planning parenthood is very much the same as planning life. You’re creating a roadmap in which most of the information you require for complete success is hidden or not available. While I appreciate the efforts and I’ve done the same planning without exception, and I mean completely without exception, the planning never works. We, current fathers, can give you, future fathers, pieces of our map to fill in your missing segments but they’ll never match completely and likely, depending on how many other dads you ask, in their numbers will serve to confuse you further.
A side note: Growing older isn’t all fun but this is one aspect that I truly enjoy. Being an elder statesman affords my opinion more weight, more gravitas. The times I can lean back and stare into the distance like I’m perusing my mental catalog of experience before issuing a proclamation gilded in wisdom and dripping with sage advice are precious. It’s not that we know much more, it’s that we’ve perfected the delivery of such information.
Back to the story. From the moment that little one is pushed into this world, chaos. I’ve been through it multiple times and one might think it’s like driving to work. After so many days of the same route I can turn on the radio, ignore the navigation and cruise. Except you can’t, because you’re not in that world. You’re in a self driving car that is partially sentient and the attention span of a dog in a field full of squirrels. The moment you get comfortable it all changes.
Chaos.
Sure I’m better to manage spills and accidents and I’ve realized that falling down isn’t the tragedy the screams would seem to make them. I’ve learned a little blood will be spilt and vomit will not come out of all materials. I’m an expert at diapers and bathing now. I’ve learned a hundred different things from each child, and now stepchild and despite what people would have you believe, very few of what you know about one will apply to the other. One’s scraped knee is a horrific injury to another, one’s traumatic experience with school isn’t even a speed bump to the other.
Chaos.
Because what you’re asking when you’re asking “What do I expect?” is simply unanswerable. You might as well ask what to expect from life, or what the meaning to life is. And perhaps therein lies the answer to the age old question of what to expect. Often times I write myself to a conclusion that I didn’t realize would be there until I put some words down on screen and let them simmer, and wouldn’t you know it? I’ve done it again.
Children are life, the living embodiment of this thing we move through each and every day. Something we struggle and strive to control and corral, to plan and map out and despite our best efforts, and much like life, they’re there to derail you by throwing your car keys in the toilet to clean them before you leave for an important meeting. You wake up each morning with a vision of what will be accomplished to realize that night that you were oh so completely wrong. So wrong.
I can’t tell you what to expect, but I can tell you that like life, you will get out of it what you put into it. It is chaos. Complete and total anarchy all the time. You will be challenged in ways you, nor I, can anticipate and how you choose to meet those challenges will inevitably determine the takeaway you experience from that aforementioned challenge. But that’s what makes the experience worth it. If you could read a book, a blog, watch a movie and be prepared for every step, how simply dreadful and boring would that be?
Chaos, my friend, and you’ll love it if you allow it. I cannot forecast what will come in every aspect, nor should I. I can, however, tell you that how you greet these chaotic days will very much define your experience of having lived through them. As that elder statesman, I’ve had the luxury and disappointment of having lived them the right way and the wrong and, believe you me, you do prefer the right way.
Turn your face into the wind and embrace the maelstrom that is to come. Allow yourself the all the facets of that journey be they joy, sadness, terror, fear, happiness, or whatever else may come. They’re all parts of the experience and while you might not appreciate them in the midst of the turmoil they’ll age in a way that makes them far more palatable as you age.
So, allow me my rights as that elder statesman. I’ll lean back and answer your question with that same expression millions of older men before me have. I’ll stare into that great beyond and pull the answer from the ether as though I’ve had to search for it in my vast collection of experience and knowledge though, in this case, the answer that’s already been said.
It’ll be chaos, and you’d do well to enjoy it, and while it’s prudent to place one foot in the sanity of planning and preparing for the very little you can control be sure that the other is planted completely in the midst of this swirling tempest we call life. At times, that tempest will pull you completely in, you’ll get uprooted and tossed about, fearful and stressed and unawares of what comes next. Don’t sweat it.
When you’re my age, you’ll realize those were the best of them .
