My Struggles with Being a Dad.
My Struggles with Being a Dad.
What a click baiting title that is. Well if you’re reading this, it worked.
I think part of the reason I haven’t written in a long time is because if I was being honest, it would be that I feel that I don’t think I currently have anything interesting to write about. People want excitement don’t they? And I don’t know if I can offer that right now. I feel that life at the moment is often a spinoff of the Truman Show where at 6:45am each morning you will look into our home and find me unloading the dishwasher while waiting for death to come knocking. That’s bloody morbid I know. It’s also not quite true and I am being a wee bit dramatic.
I am well aware of the struggles people face when wanting to bring life into this world and it is definitely not my intention to make that pain greater. I am just trying to portray my experience with parenthood through writing. I love to write, it is in some ways therapeutic.
Just like many first time parents, I was never aware of the amount of change that would occur once our first born was earth side. You go from a position of only having to feed and wash yourself occasionally, to caring for and nurturing an infant. It is a quick transition. I now have an unwavering appreciation and respect for all the committed parents out there who are striving to get through the day and be the best mum or dad possible.
I don’t know if people want to read about my thoughts on becoming a parent but that’s kind of a big part of my life at the moment and I can’t see that changing too soon. I have managed to break my ankle at the age of 35 while trying to hang onto my sporting ability by playing B grade football. I now find myself office bound with not much else to do. Change is inevitable and I probably have to accept that my best is well and truly behind me on the football field.
So here we go, I have officially morphed from travel blogger to #dadlife blogger. Wow.
I want to write an honest account about becoming a father and how my life has changed. Maybe it will resonate with other dads out there and maybe you will be able to take something from it. It is not every day you read a blog from a 35 year old male about becoming a dad.
Becoming a dad is by far the hardest but most rewarding thing that has ever happened to me. Patience has never been one of my strong points but kids have the ability to quite quickly become the world’s best teachers without knowing it. I am constantly surprised how the human body can function with a lack of sleep and am astounded that once the body consumes around four coffees a day, the caffeine doesn’t seem to do much at all.
My partner asked me my thoughts on having kids when we got together. I told her honestly, I didn’t know whether I wanted to be a Dad or not. I look back now and that makes me a little sad but I knew at the time that life was extremely short and for some reason I had imagined that the list of things that I wanted to accomplish, couldn’t be achieved once kids had arrived. A part of that is definitely true but kids are not an excuse to stop living and achieving, you just have to be willing to adapt and put yourself second to your family. Talking it over and knowing that we wanted our futures to be together led us down the path of trying for a baby. We fell pregnant quite quickly and were surprised, nervous and extremely excited that in under a year we would be a mum and dad. We were watching a wildlife documentary just after we found out the news which was following the puffin bird. We learnt a baby puffin was called a puffling hence the new nickname for our unborn, ‘Puffling’.
Just before our 12 week scan we experienced the heartache of losing this little puffling to a miscarriage. Something that still brings a bit of sadness when I think of it today. We were just about to tell our close friends the exciting news that we were expecting. Instead, we had to tell them that we were grieving. I will be forever thankful to the friends who showed love during that time. It is amazing how much you can fall in love with the idea of becoming a parent over a couple of months and when that is taken away, it is heartbreaking. During this mourning process, I quite quickly learnt just how much I wanted to become a dad. It wasn’t a case of wanting something that I couldn’t have but the thought of becoming a dad during that pregnancy felt right, it felt like it was what I was meant to be.
Miscarriage is a topic that isn’t spoken about as often as it should be. The statistics show that up to 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage, which was alarming to me. I could only imagine that this would be an even harder time for anyone without a support network. You realise that you don’t know what is going on behind closed doors and everyone is on their own journey. Just be nice and accept that if somebody wants to tell you about their pregnancy journey, they will, and making assumptions of others is beneficial for nobody.
Since that time, we have been fortunate enough to welcome a little boy and little girl into the world and I could not picture my life without them. I stare at them and feel extremely grateful.
Life will change once you have had kids. Your social life, sleep life, eat life, sex life, fitness life, travel life and hobby life. All of these lives will not exist how they once did and you will have the occasional thought of ‘are these little demons worth it?’ or have the other thought of ‘I wonder if my partner will mind if I book a solo trip to Bali for a week?’….. Sometimes it feels like you haven’t seen your partner in days, whether that’s because you’re playing musical beds at night sleeping in the kids room’s or you simply crave that little bit of time to yourself once everyone is in bed.
I remember one night in particular. I had gotten up to check on my boy for the 10th time only to pick him out of the cot and be greeted by the warm goodness that is projectile vomit. Not only did it cover my chest at three in the morning but he also managed to cover my face. At that exact moment, all I could do was sit in the rocking chair and accept that this was not a movie I was in, this horror was reality.
Even after a vomit filled night, a quick hug when I get home from work or a smile across the table tells me it is all worth it. The smallest gesture from the kids can be the highlight of my day.
One thing that I didn’t realise would happen once we had kids would be the fact that some friendships would not be as close as they once were. If anything, you expect children to bring people together but I found that it could drive a wedge between friendships. Some of my best friends had children at a younger age and I always made sure to be involved. Whether it was birthdays, bbq’s or catch ups, I tried to make a conscious effort to be there and not let the fact that I didn’t have children be a deterrent. Admittedly, this made for some hungover bbq’s. Normally I would go out of my way to buy oversized gifts so they would have to make room for them in their home and feed the kids lollies until they exploded in a sugary melt down (something I now realise those friends must have hated). I found that some friendships dissolved about as quickly as my social life. It took me a little while to understand, that is just life and people go in different directions. It doesn’t mean you won’t catch up in the future when spare time becomes a little more frequent.
The other side to that is you will become closer to people around you who have kids the same age. You might not move in the same social circles or have spent much time with certain people but once you bond over sleepless nights, playground visits, day care illnesses and the odd meltdown you realise you have a lot in common, you can relate because you are in those parental trenches together.
Socially I feel that I had gotten the majority of my partying days out the way before kids and although I do miss having a few beers with the crew on a Saturday night instead of reading Spot for the 300th time, I wouldn’t change it. If I was being honest with myself, I would have to say that if I had kids during my twenties, I don’t know if I would have had the maturity to be present in their lives as much as I needed to be. Being hungover with kids is nearly enough to stop drinking all together and it is the closest thing I can imagine to hell, so I am very glad that those days are few and far between and if a big night does occur it had better be worth it.
The biggest part I have struggled with since having kids is this question, who am I now besides a dad? A big part of me feels that the adventurous side of life that I once held onto so tightly has slipped away. I sometimes find myself wondering if that part of me is gone forever. It has been four years since I have hiked the Heysen, gone to a snowfield or been overseas. I constantly find myself thinking of new adventures. I dream of the snow, the mountains and just the thought of wearing a hiking pack again gives me that little tingle of excitement. I crave the day when I get to introduce my children to the mountains but I am not sure when that will be. I am aware that these events won’t just occur, you need to make them happen.
That old saying that ‘the future is not guaranteed and the only certainty is now’ most certainly bares truth. I am lucky that my partner also shares the passion for travel and the outdoors but when we spend a day packing the car to go away for three days, the shine of the holiday can wear off before we have even left the driveway. I can see how easy it would be to give up and not go on that holiday or not go to the beach at all. That being said, once you’re out of the driveway, you quite quickly forget the routines of home and the weight of the everyday life lifts from the shoulders. The kids are happier as well as the parents. I personally believe the outdoors are where we are meant to be. If either of the kids are ever upset I can pick them up, go outside into the fresh air and more often than not they will quite quickly calm down. If that doesn’t work I just put them on the ground and turn the hose on them, which usually does the trick….. That’s a bad joke.
One of the hardest parts of parenting that I have found is finding the time for that mental outlet. Whether it is surfing, jogging, biking or having a beer with a mate. I understand that everybody needs their own time but I quickly get the guilts that I should be helping out at home instead of doing my own thing. I’m not sure if this is just me or not, but that feeling has increased again now that we have had our little girl and it’s something I definitely find difficult.
I also struggle with the ‘r’ word… routine. It gives me the shivers. To me, knowing what your day will look like from the moment you make up is the stuff of nightmares but I have no doubt that having some routine with children makes life a lot simpler and provides some stability. I think being flexible with your routine is the best way to go about it.
At the start of this year, I decided to finish up my full time job in construction, be a stay at home dad a couple of days a weeks and pursue with my photography part time. In the short few months that I have been doing that, I can say that I haven’t regretted it one bit. The income isn’t where it once was but surprisingly that actually hasn’t bothered me at all. In hindsight, I feared change and I feared the unknown. I probably feared being judged by society for being 35 with two kids and not having a direct path that I was going down. I have always prided myself on being a hard worker, it was instilled in me from a young age. Stepping back has been a massive change. My partner told me the other day that she couldn’t remember a time in the last few years where we have all had breakfast together on a week day. We now do that most days and it is a bloody messy but fun filled occasion.
It is the small moments with the kids that make me smile each day. The little conversations while lying on the grass, sharing a sausage roll at the bakery, watching swimming lessons or playing hide and seek and finding my little boy in the same spot he has hidden in for the last fifty games and still trying to act surprised. It feels like that is where I am meant to be, playing with and teaching my kids.
My appreciation for anybody who is a stay at home parent is through the roof. It is by far harder than any day on the jobsite. It has taken me until now to fully appreciate my mum staying at home with us and also working part time while dad went off to work. I respect the effort it must have taken Dad to put in all those hours at work away from the family. Changing up the routine has confirmed to me that the current 40 hour work life balance is not healthy both mentally and physically. I have never met a person from any walk of life that hasn’t told me the same thing, ‘your kids grow up in the blink of an eye’. If that is true then I will return to the work life full time once they are in school.
It is like I am currently in a transition of my life. My brain stills thinks I am youthful and active but the sad part is in reality I am now closer to fifty than twenty. It took me a little while to comprehend this when I realised it the other day. The saying that life goes quick couldn’t be truer. My little boy is nearly three and my little girl is nearly one, which blows my mind.
So what have I learnt this far along into the parenting journey?
Well I think the most important thing is being present whenever you are able is a good start. Also, that patience is normally the answer to any situation.
Like I mentioned earlier, I am no parenting expert. I am a average guy who has had a couple of kids. I am continuously learning every day. I could have written a lot more about my experiences but maybe that’s for another time.
If you have made it this far, thank you. If you would like to talk all things kids feel free to msg me.
Cheers,
Doddy
