Well, I guess I truly understand what everyone meant during the pregnancy when they would smirk at me and say enjoy sleep while you can.Jon and his wife just brought their little girl home and I imagine that they are enjoying the insomnia that comes with the first few months of a child not understanding what a sleep schedule is. I understand what Jon's doing here: he's basically validating all the warnings and advice he got when the shit got real. It's a standard response to reality, smashing your bubble to pieces. Good luck, Jon, and congrats to you and yours!
But!
But I have to give him some grief, here. Jon, really? You had a solid 8 months to get ready for this. You're a smart guy! There really should be no surprises. There's a wealth of really good information out there, and there are tons of people who can give you sober, reliable advice on what the whole process of having a kid will entail. Sure, there's a whole host of nutcakes out there, but I assure you, good, solid advice is to be had.
That's what we've been up to, for ages. Though we haven't really gotten serious about having kids until the last six months or so, it doesn't mean we weren't paying attention. Nearly all of my best friends have had a kid or two in the last few years, and almost none of them are crazy fuckers who think that you should inject a pregnant woman's urine into a rabbit to determine the sex of the baby. I've watched all of them go through the process of having kids at various stages (none of the grody, icky, oozy stuff), and I've observed many useful facts. Packed them away for later use.
So, don't be so surprised by all this, Jon! You should be ready. If you're a little overwhelmed now, that's fine, but once everyone settles into a routine, get some books on brain development and first aid and get some life insurance policies and start dumping money into a college fund. If you and your wife haven't gotten wills written up, make sure you do that. Think ahead a little, get prepared for the next couple of waves, and you can enjoy watching it as it unfolds instead of playing catch-up.
And, enjoy those late nights. You've got three to four months of them at minimum! And, for your entertainment, during one of those long nights:
It's great to be prepared, but all the research in the world is not quite the same as the actual experience. Using lack of sleep as an example- everyone knows that you get little sleep with a newborn, but you don't know how it will feel or how you will handle it until you are in the midst of it. To give a more positive example, I knew I would love my kids but I could not have fully comprehended the depth of love I feel now that they are here. There are things you know ahead of time that you REALLY KNOW in a deeper way later.
ReplyDeleteThat is fair, but I'm not saying that the preparedness equals the experience as it unfolds. My point is that you shouldn't be surprised by any of it. Having babies is a long-standing tradition going back millions of years. There is nothing new here, stop staring and move along. Enjoy your cruise.
DeleteI can draw that same analogy to your latter statement: "I knew I would love my kids but I didn't know how it would feel..." (paraphrased). It makes perfect sense that you wouldn't love something that didn't really exist yet, but you were ready and waiting to dump all that love out over whichever baby whenever they did make it out. That's fine. I can't enjoy the experience of playing with my birthday presents until I have them in my hands.
Again, I'm not trying to have the experience before I have the experience. I'm trying to make preparations for those experiences when they do happen. I really don't have the kind of emotional life where I can even think about loving something without some groundwork being laid. I have never been the sort of person who really wanted to get married someday! Or, really wanted to have kids someday! These are experiences I have chosen to do with quite a bit of deliberation in both cases. I require preparation.
This sums up my feelings about the whole business.
ReplyDeletehttp://thehairpin.com/2012/04/on-the-happiness-of-procreation/
I don't expect to fundamentally change. The US is one of the few places in the world where the mother tends to subvert her own identity, opinions, and desires to those of the child. If I ever try to win an argument by tacking on, "Well, I didn't know the truth about XYZ until I had a child!", fucking shoot me.
To be informed is one thing, but don't overeducate to the point where it wears on your sanity. I am a worrier and generally a nervous person by nature, so I've had to fight against the tide in order to try to be at least somewhat relaxed around my own kids. Although I've done a lot of research prior to many of my own life-changing events, surprisingly, I've done a lot of my child-rearing by instinct. I hate when people would try to scare me with their own negative child-rearing stories. When I was pregnant, this one woman said to me on at least two occasions "just you wait until he becomes a teenager, you'll be sorry!". First of all, that's a cruel thing to say to a pregnant woman and made me just want to punch her in her face (and that wasn't just the pregnancy hormones talking because even now, non-pregnant, I'd still like to punch her in the face!); and second, I wanted to reply "just because you're a nasty, crazy bitch who fucked up your kids because you don't know how to put down the bottle doesn't mean I'll be doing the same with my kids!"
ReplyDeleteSo, long story short, my best advice is - don't listen to others. Everyone's experience is different, so their stuation might not be yours. Don't assume every worst case scenario as you might luck out and get that baby who sleeps through the night at 6 weeks old! Every baby is different, so you will just have to get to know him/her like you would any other new acquaintance.