patience Archives - Dad and Buried

I like Guns N’ Roses. Appetite For Destruction is one of the best albums of the 80s, and even the bloated Use Your Illusion double album has a lot of great songs on it. If you want, I’ll even defend parts of Chinese Democracy. What’s that? You don’t want? Fine.

As I try to cultivate my son’s appreciation for my favorite music, there is a fair amount of the GnR catalog I will avoid until he’s older. But even the staunchest GnR hater probably enjoys whistling along with “Patience.”

I’ve been trying to teach my son to whistle that tune, which is basically impossible. But it’s not as impossible as teaching him the actual concept of patience.

When you become a parent, you suddenly need to learn a whole new set of skills.

You’ll be doing things you never thought possible, things for which your pre-baby life never prepared you. The good news is you’ll pick them up pretty quickly. The bad news is that this particular set of skills changes you. It’s impossible to be a halfway decent mom or dad without becoming a slightly lamer person. The evolution is both impressive and soul-crushing.

Many of the skills I’ve acquired are quite useful and, without them, I’d be adrift as a parent. Skills like diaper-changing and baby-holding and swaddling and so on.

Unfortunately, many more of them are skills I wish I hadn’t acquired. Because while they may make me a better parent, they also take me further and further away from my pre-parent self.

Dad and Buried

Tag: patience

Patiently Waiting for Patience

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Parenting Skills I Wish I Didn’t Have

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