Freddy Davis and his dad, watching Sesame Street one morning, recently.
It’s Father’s Day on Sunday and I haven’t written much about becoming a dad since our son arrived. Freddy is 15 months old now, and the days are long, but the years being short. Here’s some lessons I’ve taken from early fatherhood:
Worry less. Before he was born, I would wake up in the middle of the night worrying about all manner of things. I had an irrational fear about dying which became more pronounced the nearer his birth came. I attribute it to fears that I wouldn’t be an adequate provider or father. But it turns out his needs are quite simple. Babies don’t care about the balance in your 401k, the amount your consultancy is billing, or the hit rate on your press pitches. They only need you to be there in person on a frequent and reliable basis. At least some of the time they prefer it if you can put away your stupid phone and pay them attention. If something doesn’t matter to your kid, does it matter, period? 🤔
People surprise you with their capacity to be generous. I spent a lot of energy thinking about what it would cost us to have a child. But one day, as I was feeding him frozen blueberries for his breakfast, Freddy offered me one. It was a breakthrough moment because until then I hadn’t considered that a child could be kind. I don’t remember being very kind to my own parents as a kid, although now I can see that’s not true. It turns out, Freddy likes it when we take pleasure in the world alongside him, and his open heart is an inspiration. It’s something I’m more and more grateful for daily. He is a pleasure to be around. I realize how lucky we are to have him. It makes me want to spoil him rotten.
Kids can be funny. Freddy likes to make jokes. Now he offers us blueberries until we try to take them, then he puts them in his mouth. Then he laughs. That’s funny. Like, chortle, chortle. Ha!
It helps to have support. My wife Logan is an amazing mother. Her mom Pat also came to New York often during Freddy’s first year to help us. I would be a zombie dad without them and I’m so grateful for all the work they have done to care for Freddy. I do a lot less than half the childcare even though we try hard to make things equal.
Enjoy the good times. We made time to take a vacation last year and this year. When we’re together as a family in the sunshine I feel very peaceful and content.
Making time for what’s important means making hard choices. Before Freddy came along, I would squeeze a lot into my calendar. But when you have a kid who wakes up every morning at five, you’re exhausted more often. It means one doesn’t have the energy to devote to all the things. That means one must get better at letting people down. It’s not a bad thing or a good thing, only a reality. I suppose one would call it “management.”
Boundaries are there to make things easier not harder. It’s an extension of the ability to let people down, this. But being a dad has taught me to hold firm on things that matter because if you don’t, you’re making a rod for your own back. Fred likes to take off my glasses and play around with them, but I need to be able to see. It’s meant a long battle where I’ve had to tell him “No” a lot and mean it. But in the end, he accepted it. And now he takes his mum’s sunglasses off all the time, instead. I’m glad I stuck to my guns.
Keep going even though things are hard. I’m talking more about the stretching experiences. I didn’t learn to swim until I was ten and I was always scared of the water. I wanted Freddy to learn early so he’d enjoy swimming pools. But he cried the first three times we took him. He didn’t love it at all. I comforted him through the hardest bits, but I also made it clear that we would keep going back. His confidence started to grow and now he’s kicking and splashing in the water and even looks forward to it. Last week he didn’t even cry once. I’m proud of him and the pride partly comes from having stuck at it together.
There’s no point comparing to other people. Fred is a big boy. He also isn’t walking yet, and he can only say a few words. Other kids are smaller. They’re walking and talking more. The first few times I realized he was less advanced in some areas than other kids, I felt anxious. Likewise, I invested a lot of energy being proud of having such a tall kid. Then I remembered the first lesson of being a dad: To worry less. I love watching him struggle to take his first steps and how he hisses when we ask him: “what does a snake say?” It’s about being grateful for what we do have, instead of placing attention elsewhere. Like, I don’t want to spend the next 15 years pressuring him to go into the NBA. I’m letting that stuff go, man. Namaste!
Sesame Street is good. HBO carries all 20 seasons and I like everything about the show until they introduce Elmo. Then it feels like they started pandering to kids. I liked it before, in the 1970s, when the show feels like it talks to kids like adults. My favorite character is Oscar the Grouch. That “bad stuff is good stuff, if you’re a grouch” running joke never gets old. I also like Maria and Gordon and Susan and Luis, too. My favorite character is Grover for his cheeky names he calls people. Being a parent means you get to enjoy a second childhood in a vicarious way, and I enjoy having an excuse to do that. It’s so nice not to have to take oneself so seriously all the time.
Profound lessons, they’re not. At least, not all. But I’ve enjoyed learning them. And thanks for letting me share them with you.
Now as Oscar the Grouch might say, I hope you have a dreadful, stinky day.
