I’m going to break omerta. Becoming a parent makes every part of your existing life worse. Your marriage. Your work. Your personal pursuits. Your friendships. All of them suffer. All of them change. Most parents become sophists trying to argue around this reality.
“No really, it’s so wonderful!”
We’re lying. Or at least, we’re not telling the whole truth. All of the above is an accurate reflection that I—and, I suspect, most parents—can attest to. But there’s another piece of the puzzle, one that complicates things. While every aspect of your pre-parent life suffers with the arrival of the lil endless pit of wanting, there’s this new aspect of your life too. And that new part of your life is amazing. And awful. Rewarding. And mindless. Joyful. And relentlessly dull.
It is all of these things. A single laugh from the little one makes it worth it, but there’s no doubt that things change and become harder.
Sometimes, I resent it.
And I resent even more the avalanche of “well, you just need to get your priorities straight” that comes after saying as much. Most of all, I am troubled by the voice in my head—a voice that sounds like my prepubescent self—whispering mournfully, “you said you’d be around for your kids more.”
All of us develop ideas of what kind of parents we’re going to be. I have a pet theory that we overcorrect for our own parents’ mistakes, creating shockwaves of miscalculated care down the generations. I’ve learned that, much like with courage, we only learn whether we will live up to our internal idea of ourselves when the moment comes.
Pay attention to what people do, not what they say. That’s as true about ourselves as anyone.
I’ve learned a lot about myself since McNugget came screaming into our lives a little over a year ago. Some of these things surprised me (although, in hindsight, I’m not sure why).
I like to work. Now, I include working on my book and writing in general here, but I don’t think I had fully come to appreciate how much I’ve come to love working after I began working for myself. I get antsy to get back to it.
I will sacrifice sleep to pursue things I care deeply about.
I love spending time with McNugget.
I get sick of spending time with McNugget faster than I am proud to admit.
That temper I spent decades getting under control? Well, turns out I’m still Irish.
I don’t mind the boring work of having a child: mixing formula, changing diapers, making baby food. Mindless activity can be enjoyable.
I’m wildly inconsistent in terms of my patience for the boy. I can go for four days as primary caregiver. I can also lose my shit after an hour and need to walk away.
I understand why parents resort to mindless TV/insta/tiktok consumption. I’m holding out with podcasts, but who knows.
None of this is particularly important. All parents have some sort of list like this. The takeaway that I want to leave you with is this: none of this is coherent. There’s no central narrative. It is just survival and a grudge match of competing desires and obligations.
Lost in that grudge match? You. If you allow it.
When I open up about this, I’m told by everyone but my wife to suck it up. That it’s temporary. That I have it lucky, really. That I’m now responsible for a little soul and that I have to live for him. All of that may be true. But you know? Fuck it.
I don’t want to live for my son—or my wife, siblings, or friends. I want to live for me. They have their own lives to live. My obligation as a parent is to raise a little person to be able to live for himself. To help him connect his idea of himself with the way he lives his life. To not fuck up so badly that his overcorrections for my mistakes are catastrophic down the line.
Yet we live in a society that meets saying such things aloud with approbation. Say it anyway. Once more with feeling. Follow the bouncing ball:
Now everybody—
McNugget is adorable. I coparent 3 kids (10, 14, 16) and have been told by everyone that I was in the "thick" of it for the past 15+ years. The thick never ends. They say time goes by quickly (days are slow, years are fast, yadaaaaaaa) but it is all very slow and when it is "done" (it is never done, this is eternal) I will be very old. I parent feast and famine style (it's more complicated than every other week) and it is exactly how that sounds - all the good and bad at once, and then none of it. And repeat. I know I am a better parent than what I came from. But my parents were the perfect parents for a writer, so how can I complain? And I never would have been this funny without all this pain. So I say mess him up but teach him all those big words you know along the way so that he can write a really great novel.
I always explain to people 3 things about how Pamela and I parent and the life we now lead.
1. It’s hard. Super fucking hard. We do almost everything on hard mode, not really on purpose, but because we think it’s the best way to do exactly as you described above. Teach our daughter how to become a self sufficient, capable absolutely badass women. It’s not for everyone.
2. We don’t live for our daughter. She now lives with us. That means we eat the same dinner. We travel to places we also enjoy. We treat her like a little human with her own thoughts and opinions and abilities. That has helped us enjoy our lives and maintain both our own selfish cares but also our marriage. In my opinion, Only doing what the kids want is a recipe for depression. Don’t lose yourself in being only a parent. That being said we also have changed our expectations. We still travel a lot, but aren’t at the fanciest restaurants and cocktail bars and out till 2 am. We can enjoy our life with our daughter and be grateful for all of it.
3. I wouldn’t trade any of it for anything. The bad with the good. It’s a life I cherish. I also don’t begrudge anyone who doesn’t want to be a parent. It’s not for everyone no matter what the mob of society tells you. Which is really about knowing yourself first. If you don’t know yourself, parenting is not going to make it somehow better. Which I think goes to the lie people tell themselves and others. Parenting is like anything else in that way.