I love my kids, I just hate parenting
Watching a child grow and develop is an amazing thing, a true privilege as a parent. It allows even the most cynical, jaded and beaten-down of us to experience anew the simple joys of youth. It gives us a chance to revisit a sacred time of sublime innocence and joy, when the world wasn’t so complicated and shaded in gray. It is a sacred opportunity and it should be cherished.
Except when it sucks.
I was raised Catholic. And like everyone else who was raised Catholic, I am what you might call “lapsed.” (In reality I am actually just “not a Catholic anymore,” but my parents might read this, so let’s go with “lapsed.”)
I don’t put much truck in religion these days; it has its purpose for many, and I don’t begrudge them their beliefs, except of course when they use those beliefs as a rationale for violence and intolerance and hatred and war and etc. Which is a lot of people, but it certainly isn’t the majority. So go ahead and pray if you like; I just won’t be joining you.
But my son might.
Read more about Raising Kids With Religion – or Not …
My son hit the eleven-week mark yesterday.
The bigger news is that he hit the 13 pound mark a few weeks ago. Upon crossing the 12-pound Rubicon (WHY DID THEY CANCEL “RUBICON”?!), our pediatrician told use that he was perfectly capable of sleeping through the night without needing to be fed. “Twelve hours. I know it sounds tough,” she said, “and it is, but you have to establish the routine.”
Apparently he needs to learn to soothe and sedate himself, even if it means crying himself hoarse, and it won’t be until he gets to college that he’ll learn all the fun ways to do that!
Until then, “Crying It Out” is the way to go…or is it?
You owe it to yourself to humiliate your children.
When they’re older they’ll do it to themselves, whether they like it or not. It’s totally inevitable that at some point in their lives our children will be the focus of widespread ridicule as the result of some embarrassing miscue, whether it’s accidentally going into the girls’ bathroom or clumsily tripping on stage as they reach for their diploma or someone filming a video of them when they’re so drunk their attempts at speech sound like Chewbacca making love to the Hulk.
It’ll happen. Just as it’s happened to all of us. Until it does, it’s your job. And it must be done.
The other day, my wife gently let me know that she was a little concerned with the language I used in my last post. That’s not an MP, I said. That’s a YP.
But then, the next day…
The doctor told us she loved the way my wife’s cervix looked. She used terms like effacement and dilated and etc. She says it should be any day now.
Let me repeat: It should be any day now that I will have a son. Yikes.
Does this change everything? Is it time for me to tone down my language, reconsider some of my actions in the face of becoming a father. Is what was just a few days ago purely a YP now an MP?
Is it time for Dad and Buried to grow up? Can I?