UNDER MY ROOF
Legendary screenwriter William Goldman (“Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”) once said of making movies: “Nobody knows anything.”
His point was clear. There is no single formula, no magic bullet for success. Movies strike the public fancy, or flop horribly, because, well, because they just do.
Fatherhood is an equally inexact science. Everyone from psychologists to comedians (Bill Cosby springs to mind) has written a book on the subject, but all those words, all those theories don’t do much good when you’re holding a screaming baby and you can’t figure out a.) What’s causing him to scream b.) How to make him stop, and c.) Where is Mom, anyway?
My two kids are well beyond the screaming-baby stage, but the memories are more potent than kryptonite. So for you new dads out there, I offer a few words of advice from somebody who has felt your pain and confusion.
• Don’t avoid the nasty stuff. Three words: Change the diaper. Not once, but as often as you can. Yes, the procedure is gross, it’s humbling, it’s stinky. So … that means your wife should be the sole practitioner? Look at it this way. Years from now when your kid is giving you a hard time, insisting that you just don’t get it, you’ll be able to respond with the triedand true zinger “Listen buddy, I changed your crappy diapers when you were a baby. So don’t tell me I don’t know what’s best for you” without crossing your fingers.
• There is no such thing as “quality time.” There is just time. I think the phrase “quality time” was invented by a corporate titan to rationalize his lack of presence in his household. “Yes, I don’t get to spend much time with the family, but what I do is quality time.” In other words, he takes them to Disney.
Vacations? Sure, that’s part of family time. But so are bedtime stories, watching cartoons, driving to soccer games, being silly, being bored.
One of the best things I ever did after my daughter Kelsey was born was convince my boss to allow me to work a flex schedule that allowed me to care for her at home on Fridays. Those days were fun, difficult, educational, and always an adventure. Some were good Fridays, and some were freaky Fridays. Regardless, to this day I’m grateful I had that time.
• Try to keep your baby in his own bed.
My kids were awful sleepers, prone to chronic ear and respiratory infections that woke them throughout the night. We’d pull them into bed with us so we could snag a modest amount of sleep and preserve our sanity. (I know the experts warn against this because a parent could roll over and suffocate his baby. Fact is, our son, Jimmy, was such a big baby, we feared he’d smother us.)
One of the most painful duties of any parent is to ignore your child’s plaintive wails from the crib as he screams for that comfortable king-sized slot between you and your wife (we’ve all read Ferber, haven’t we?).
It took my wife and me a long time to break our kids of the parent-bed habit. Now we face a different problem: rousing them out of their own beds.
• Sometimes, a kid just wants her mom.
One Friday afternoon, my wife came home from work and found me sitting on the floor reading the newspaper. Plopped in her baby chair next to me was Kelsey, crying … well, maybe more like shrieking. Before you rush to judgment, let me note that I’d tried everything to appease her. Fed her, sang to her, changed her, rocked her, drove her around in the car — nothing worked. Anytime I tried to hold her she turned into a mongoose, twisting and struggling to break out of my embrace, as though my arms were hissing cobras. I gave up, and waited.
My wife, taking in this tableau, was horrified. “What’s going on?” she asked, and before I could sputter my defense she’d picked up Kelsey, who quieted down instantly and went to sleep.
Dads, this is the final lesson. There are times in your child’s life when you simply are not the answer, and you’d best get over it.
Jim Keogh is an award-winning editor. He lives with his family in Worcester.
