Headaches. Poor sleep. Puking. Chills. Body aches. Midnight bathroom trips.
Who needs a hangover when you can have kids instead?
You know that “26.2” sticker marathoners put on their car to brag about how much fitter they are than you? Parents should get a “24 hours” one to remind the world that they are sacrificing their sanity for humanity’s survival. Let’s not forget that Lance Armstrong won seven Tour de France races, but he could only endure three kids. (It’s unclear which task he needed illegal drugs to accomplish.)
Parents are all so hopeful and naive. You think you’ll know how to handle each child. Then you have them and realize not only do you not know what to do; you don’t even know what to feel. It’s like children wake up and decide to create situations you could never predict or prepare for, just to mess with your head. Your little ideas and proposals are like the plates of dinner you serve them. At best they will tolerate them, but usually they just demand something else. Every parent has a plan, and then your toddler poops in the bathtub. What’s the next move? Get the Shop-Vac?
Children take and take and take. And then once they’ve taken everything, that’s when they really start to go to work on you. And the young ones are like leeches. They suck your time, money, energy, resources, dreams, will to live. Suck, suck, suck. And they give nothing back. Young kids are like having an employee who’s robbing the cash register, but you can’t legally fire them. And worse, if you yell at them, somehow you’re the bad guy.
Please remember we were twenty-one when our first child was born. Melissa had her first child-induced breakdown the day before our firstborn, Joel, exited her birth canal. Me? I waited till the day after. (I’ve always liked to share things with people.) Like everything that happened that first year of being parents, the details of Melissa’s tailspin are a bit fuzzy for me. All I clearly remember are her hysterics and our Hyundai Elantra. I’ve seen Melissa upset plenty of times. I’ve seen her at points of frustration where she’s what I deem (in my head) “no longer on planet Earth.”
But this was something else. It was an actual panic attack, a moment of Oh-dear-God-what-have-we-done-there-is-a-baby-coming-tomorrow-I-can’t-control-my-breathing. It started out as a fight of sorts over only God knows what. Then, as Melissa elevated her tone and breathing and overall lack of control, I realized it was something more serious. I felt helpless. She was nine months pregnant and we had just bought our home. In hindsight, it was a miracle this only lasted thirty minutes and that with some breathing and a walk she was able to calm down.
During my first breakdown, however, I distinctly remember feeling like I had tapped into a heaviness and seriousness that I had never known before. I hadn’t just bitten off more than I could chew; I was actively choking and needed the Heimlich. I’ve felt that every day since having kids. Like I said, I’m a sharer. I like to experience life’s big moments with as many people as possible, so I greeted our newborn son with my own cocktail of anxiety and worry.
First off, the experience is just gross. Not kind-of-sort-of gross. More like, the grossest thing you will ever see. The person you’ve deposited all your romantic funds into is yelling at you, pooping herself, and squeezing an alien out of a body part you’ve never seen in this form. Yet she’s somehow more beautiful than ever. It’s all very confusing.
My children were actually a pain in the butt before they were born. More specifically, a pain in the back because they were each sunny-side up. That super helpful, huge stomach you get when you’re pregnant? Mostly useless to Melissa since our children did their kicking on her back. Even better? When they arched their heads out to leave the canal, all the pressure was hitting Melissa’s lower back. It’s called “back labor” and is as much fun as it sounds.
And then they make you hold the baby, which for some people is an overwhelming moment of joy. For me, it stopped at the overwhelming part. I couldn’t believe that we were now in charge of making sure this human stayed alive. If you’re a parent, you know exactly how crazy the whole experience is. Watching a human that you made with your own body be born and take its first breath is surreal. It’s a feeling that’s difficult to describe—something like happiness, but not exactly that. It’s strange, new, other.
I’m sorry, but we make it far too easy to have a child. I had lost four cell phones in the previous eighteen months. But now I was legally in charge of the frailest, neediest possible version of a human—without even passing a test or getting a license. But parents don’t think about this. They just have children because it’s their favorite thing to do. Not having kids, mind you. Making kids. It’s a cruel trap that God designed. If making babies were even slightly boring, the human race would have disappeared with the dinosaurs.
Eating brownies and ice cream is my second favorite thing to do. It used to be my favorite thing; then the other thing became a part of my life. But it is still firmly rooted in second place. Still, if every time I had brownies and ice cream there was a chance I would have a baby, I’d never be in the same room with brownies again. The cost would be too high. I would cut them out of my life entirely. I would seek rehab.
We would be better off as parents if there was a process involved. What if instead of sex, to have a baby you had to literally make the child. Like assemble it IKEA style. You’ve decided to have a kid? Great! Here is the box of kid parts and a miniature Allen wrench. If this were the route, there would be only two new Swedish kids a year, and one of them would wobble if you leaned on him. Sorry about Johnny. If it gets on your nerves, just put a coaster under his leg.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m all for having kids. But I’m also all for not having them. Or at least making the process harder. Because under the current rules, it’s harder to rent a U-Haul than to have a child.
I so vividly remember holding Joel and that first sense of weightiness, realizing that our lives had changed forever. It superseded any other emotions I had in that moment. Later I felt guilty that I wasn’t happier. If it wasn’t for the fact that I always feel guilty, that would have been a surprise. Instead, I just doubled down and felt guilty for feeling guilty.
And I felt anxious. We worried that the baby wouldn’t sleep that night. Everyone slept but me. Even though the dad couch (essentially a two-by-four) didn’t provide much comfort, it didn’t matter. I could have been lying on a cloud made of puppy fur and wouldn’t have gotten a wink of sleep.
My heart raced. My mind raced faster. What have we gotten into? This changes everything. This is so much responsibility, and I can’t bear it. Thor came out last week, and I didn’t see it, so I probably never will. I guess I’ll never see a movie again. Was this worth it?
Activity Time!
How do you know if you’re ready to have kids? Do you feel prepared?
No? Then you’re not ready.
Yes? Then you’re not ready.
Truth is, there’s really no such thing as being ready. I’d say if you’re at a place where you are willing and able to sacrificially live for something other than yourself, and most of your plants haven’t died, then you’re about as ready as you’re gonna be.
Being a new parent is like the first week as a high school freshman. You’re nervous; you’re uncomfortable; you’re constantly worried. Meanwhile, everyone around you seems so casual about it. How are they not freaking out all the time? Everything is scary when your kids are babies. They’re so fragile. They don’t even really look human.
I remember seeing the wrinkled face of my son when he was born and thinking he looked just like my dad. And not like a young version of my dad. He looked like the current old man that is my father. I couldn’t be sure he didn’t have the Benjamin Button disease.
It’s amazing just how little you know and just how much there is to freak out about.
You are scared both that your baby won’t sleep and that they will sleep too much. Yeah, that’s a thing. The first time your child sleeps through the night, you’d think it would be a celebration. No, it’s terrifying. You wake with a full-night’s rest for the first time in months, realize your child slept through the night, and then sprint to their room 100 percent sure they’re dead. And that’s a legit fear! Babies are so fragile that they might die sleeping. How the Lord thought that’s a finished product is beyond me.
Making kids is the easy part. Birthing them is difficult, but one party takes on the majority of that stress. But raising children? Well, that’s tough for everyone.
So much of those early years are tied into sleep, and it’s the foundation of tension in a marriage. It’s hard to be a good human when you’re tired. I can’t even send a good text when I’m a little sleepy. So asking someone to be a good spouse is like asking for the moon. You know, that moon you’re looking at while you’re awake in the middle of the night.
Because I’m at least 30 percent sure Melissa is gonna read this book, I should confess that she did most of the heavy lifting with middle-of-the-night baby stuff. I know there were rare occasions when I got up and actually helped, but that’s how rare they were: we both remember them.
MELISSA’S POV
We were both half asleep during the baby years. Once we got through them, though, I’ve never slept harder. Now it takes several minutes for the kids to wake me up if they need me during the night. Maybe I’m just catching up on all that sleep I lost.
Of course, there was a practical reason for this. Melissa had what those babies were looking for: boobs. I could rock them, sing to them, valiantly attempt to bottle-feed them. But at the end of the day, no father on earth can compete with a mother’s boobs.
Boobs are a real point of contention between dad and the baby during this time. There’s a lot of jealousy, as something that was once primarily used for your pleasure is now attached to their survival. It feels unfair.
Having young kids dramatically affects a couple’s sex life. I’m sorry—I mean it completely eradicates it. I love my wife and have been sexually attracted to this woman for twenty years. But gents, it’s a bit of a selfish move to look at your wife, who just grew a human from scratch and now is keeping it alive, and have the audacity to ask her to help meet your “needs.” Just know that once that baby comes out, there’s gonna be a season of sitting things out, and when she is ready to get back in the game, maybe you can get some playing time in. But in my experience, this has to be led by her. When she and the baby are ready to share the boobs, she’ll let you know.
As my kids aged and their problems got less breast-related, I became more useful. Trips to the bathroom, puking, nightmares—not only can I help those problems, there’s a decent chance I’m already up dealing with them myself.
Joel was our first of two children who would have an allergy to staying in his bed. Joel and Gloria were, and still are, climbers. We have a tree in our backyard that is Gloria’s refuge. She shares a room with Claire, and Claire can’t climb the tree. So the only place Gloria can get away is up. The first time we realized this was going to be a problem started the way that so many problems do, with a thud.
There was no reason for a thud in our house other than a child falling out of the crib. It was the only logical explanation. We knew when we heard it. Oh, dear God, our baby thought we were such bad parents he has taken his own life. I honestly couldn’t blame him. But no, Joel was happy. Just not in his crib. His slumber had ended; it was time to see the world. At eleven months old, Joel scaled his crib and had the confidence he was going to be able to do it, so he brought Elmo and Blue Blanket. Joel didn’t just survive his thud at eleven months—when we reviewed the footage, he landed it.
Ah, remember the blanket days? Joel had Blue Blanket. Gloria had Beary, who “went to be with another family who needed him” (was forgotten at In-N-Out) and was replaced by Bunny, and Claire had Bank the Blank—who is still currently taken to school every day of second grade. Whoops.
Why does third-kid parenting feel so much like punting? These days our take on the blanket or stuffed-animal debate is to use it as long as it helps them. Because if it helps them, it helps you. They’ll ditch it eventually. No adult has a blankey they need to carry around everywhere. And if they do, well, they have larger issues at hand. Besides, no adult can judge a child for that. An object that provides emotional support that you carry everywhere and is covered in disgusting germs? Not only do I have one of those, I give Verizon $150 a month for it.
Okay, kid climbing out of the crib. No big deal. This isn’t super abnormal, right? A quick internet search and we realized this was so common they made a product for it: a domed net that went over the crib to keep the child in. Brilliant. It had a little zipper door so we could easily get them in and out. Problem solved.
It took Joel exactly two nights to figure out the zipper system. I’m thirty-seven, and I have problems with zippers at least once a week. Now we were in a battle trying to imprison our child in his crib. Our next move was to safety pin the two zippers together. So as it unzips, it immediately zips closed. This worked. We did it! We outwitted our one-year-old. Game, set, mat . . . Nope.
Joel made a hole in the net. To this day, we have no idea how. Like Andy in The Shawshank Redemption, Joel found a way to carve a hole into his dome prison and escape. Our baby Houdini won the day. He made it through, and before he did, he sent Blue Blanket and Elmo ahead of him. This is the equivalent of Babe Ruth calling his home run.
Once again, we had been defeated. That was, until we brought home the tent. The tent was a little toddler-sized canvas structure meant to be a traveling sleep aid for children that went on the floor. We used it for four years on two different children and it’s the closest to camping we’ve ever done. Joel was never able to escape the tent. Instead he would just wake up and start walking around in it. We kept him close to us, often in our room. We all relaxed, and he started sleeping again.
Gloria, on the other hand, stayed in the crib a little longer but was never fooled by the net. She figured out the zipper with no safety pin the first night, and she managed to undo the safety-pinned zipper by night three. We got desperate and added a second safety pin (our most headlong act yet). It was just three nights until baby David Blaine undid both the safety pins, unzipped the net, and roamed free in the rat shack.
She performed even better than Joel. Though, in his defense, maybe she just had better motivation because his baby room had lush carpet, a proper changing table, a rocking chair. You know, a nursery. Meanwhile, she was in the tent on the floor of a converted carport with a space heater. She was motivated to escape, which meant we needed to get motivated to sleep train (which is such a funny concept, sleep training). Not a complete product, Lord. How do I return it?
Bottom line: marriage is hard enough; now insert children. Young children who demand everything from you. According to research, new parents (especially moms) are less satisfied in their marriage than their childless peers.1 This makes sense because the marriage falls down the priority depth chart. And without effort, it can remain like that.
MELISSA’S POV
I’m glad you didn’t pick up this book for A + B = C advice about child rearing . . . for feeding, wearing, sleep training, education, potty training, discipline, or technology advice. I know you will read all those books and listen to all those podcasts, and I say take it all with a grain of salt. No formula works perfectly. Every kid is unique and different at every stage. Try your best, and forgive yourself for messing up or not knowing better (see: us bed training our baby climbers, Joel and Gloria). Also, don’t fake it. We are all a mess. I’ve been that new parent at the park playdate whose toddler keeps having accidents. Am I the only one? How are you guys dealing with this? Wait—you’re silent on this topic but your kid has a Pull-Up on! We’re all fakes; why not be honest so another parent can say, “Yeah, me too”?
If you’re a nonparent, I want to tell you that I envy your life more than you can possibly know. But I also want to encourage you to be nothing but supportive of your friends who do have kids. Don’t ask questions. Don’t tell them your weekend plans. And for goodness’ sake, don’t give them advice. Just stand there and be their Wailing Wall. Take their complaints and hold their downward-spiraling spirits as they lament Old Testament–style. Because if you do anything other than this, you may lose them forever. Parents have no tolerance, no room for anything extra. We are ready to snap at even the slightest hint of judgment.
The meanest thing you can do to anyone with children—the big faux pas, the cardinal sin, the unforgivable crime—is to even hint that they are a bad parent. There is serious shame in failing as a parent. Justified or not, that’s the truth. There is no forgiveness for being a bad parent. Not even from your kids, sometimes. It’s like Oscar Wilde says in The Picture of Dorian Gray: “Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.”2
Of course, the instinct and desire to be a good parent is honorable. That’s why it stings so much when someone close to you suggests that maybe you’re not up to parenting par. The judgment of a friend can feel like getting hit by a train. Perhaps worst of all is the judgment of a grandparent. They want the best for their grandkids so they decide to get involved, say a few words, maybe make a few critical comments. And . . . Jenga! The whole tower falls.
I remember Melissa’s dad once doing something that was seemingly innocent. He recommended a parenting book, probably one we’d already rejected, so no big deal, right? The problem was that he gave it to us after spending a weekend with our kids, so it felt a whole lot like judgment (spoiler alert: it was).
Somewhat recently my dad suggested in a not-so-subtle way that Joel’s attitude problems in football were connected to me missing some of his games. Honestly, he maybe has a point. But if you’re going to play judge about your kids’ parenting skills, you better have crushed the parenting game yourself. Because what our parents don’t realize is, yes, our parenting looks different. And that’s intentional. That’s our goal. We are doing it differently than our parents did on purpose.
But as much as that judgment from a parent can sting, nothing hurts more than it coming from your spouse. Melissa knows my biggest insecurity in parenting and I know hers. Mine is that I’m gone a lot. I know I miss stuff. I do my very best to make the most of the time I’m home, and so far the jury seems pretty happy with that job. But Melissa knows she can hit me with a “You’re always gone; you’re never here; I guess I’ll be doing that by myself” and unravel me like a Fruit Roll-Up.
Her? It’s a well-known fact around the house that Mom gets stressed, and when Mom gets stressed, Mom gets . . . shall we say, stern? Yes, stern is the nicest way I can say that. Or the meanest way I could say it. For example, “You know, maybe every once in a while, switch it up and not yell at all of us all day. That would be a nice treat. Just a little variety for all of us over here.” Purely hypothetical thing I said last week.
This is a low blow and a cheap shot. It’s important to avoid these types of things and stay focused on the real enemies: nonparents. A nonparent judging a parent is like when I get mad at the pilot for a little turbulence. Yeah sorry, bumpiness comes with the jobs of pilot and parent. You can enjoy the ride, or we’ll happily show you the exit.
Personally, I seem to have a lot of run-ins with dog parents. Not dog owners—that I don’t have a problem with. But dog parents. You know, folks who compare themselves to parents because they own an animal, as if animals and children were even nearly comparable in any way whatsoever.
Having a dog and calling yourself a parent is like having a Hot Wheels toy and calling yourself a car owner. Yes, technically it’s accurate—but you’re an imbecile for thinking those are the same.
I remember doing a show in Solana Beach with a dog owner. She brought her dog to the greenroom. Before the show, she was open-mouth kissing her dog. I was repulsed. I was grimacing and may have audibly gasped. That’s when the showdown began.
Her: You have kids, right?
Me: Yes.
Her: Well, can your kids even do this?
Me: Sit on my lap and make out with me? Legally, no.
Her (talking to the dog): Just ignore that big, bad man. He’s nasty. But not you. What do you want for dinner tonight, honey boo? Chicken or fish? Chicken or fish?
(intensifies kissing of dog)
Her (talking to me now): I believe that all animals should be treated equally, if not better, than people.
Me: Really? All animals? What about chicken and fish?
Her (very upset): Ugh. You disgust me. Just know that your kids could never fill your heart in the way my dog does mine.
Me: Whatever. Maybe that’s true, but you just need to know, your dog is going to die waaayyy before my kids. And you might have to kill it. So maybe get a whiteboard and pro/con this whole situation.
(end scene, end relationship)
People shame you for being a bad parent and sometimes just being a parent at all. Don’t believe me? Bring a kid to REI. Their judgment is firmer than the grip of a carabiner. But you get over it and get comfortable. You actually get so comfortable that you start talking about having more of them. That freshman-in-high-school analogy still works because, just like in school, you settle in pretty quickly.
You can get in the cycle of having kids. I’ve wondered why that is, and it’s because kids are like cell phones. Every two years you’d love an upgrade. A new kid and a new phone are similar: there’s a lot of buzz. Everyone is excited, they come over, they want to hold it, and the most important rule is don’t drop it.
But after a while the excitement has passed, and now you have a two-year-old kid, which is a lot like a two-year-old phone. It’s got a lot of smudges on it, it never responds to voice commands, and sometimes when you’re really upset with it, you’re thinking about dropping it on purpose.
I remember someone asking me once what our “parenting philosophy” was. I had two kids under four, so I honestly couldn’t believe what I was hearing. My eyes were barely open and the bags under them looked like the dark side of the moon. We had four people in a one-bedroom-one-bathroom house with a converted carport. None of us had showered in at least five days. I’m pretty sure I was drinking more coffee than I should be able to have and still legally drive. Our philosophy could be summed up in one word: survive. That’s it. Just get through each day still being alive. Every night was basically a version of the movie The Purge. If none of us dies, everybody wins. Bonus points if nobody kills someone.
But parenting not only tests your physical survival skills, it also strains your relational survival skills. How have I managed to remain married to Melissa, despite all the stresses and strains, mistakes and missteps, criticism and shame? The important thing for Melissa and me has always been to constantly prioritize us. And not simply us but us over the kids.
Our relationship with each other is more important than our relationship with our children. Period. Ours predates them and, Lord willing, will outlast the time they live with us. And you know what? I’d have it no other way. Being married is hard, but a spouse is easier than a kid. At least I have an idea of what to expect with Melissa. A kid? Not a clue. One of my favorite things about Melissa is that in the twenty years we’ve been together, she’s never pooped in the bath. That’s something none of my three kids can say.
Melissa’s lack of willingness to poop in the tub is part of why it’s easy to prioritize her over the kids. Which, of course, is good for them long term. It’s wonderful for kids to have two loving parents they can count on to always be together, blah blah blah. Sure. But we don’t do it for them. We do it for us.
To do this, sacrifices have to be made. The biggest one we ever made was missing Claire’s first day of kindergarten. Why? It was our fifteenth anniversary and I was performing in New York City for the first time.
Done deal. Sorry, Claire. We’ll be there for your kindergarten graduation. (Well, we’d planned on it anyway. COVID-19 meant kindergarten graduation happened in the same place everything happened that year—our living room.)
This may all sound harsh and mean from the outside. Sure, I get it. But prioritizing your spouse can mean spending time away from the kids. This reminds you why you’re together, why you got together in the first place, and why you want to stay together. So many relationships end when the kids leave the house, and it makes sense. Couples lose sight of being a couple. They essentially become coworkers working on the same project. Then the project ends, and you remember that, at best, coworkers tolerate each other.
My commitment to Melissa over the kids was probably never more on display than years ago during a road trip. I was sick. This happens. It’s why I do the driving usually. But I had already been a little sick, so I couldn’t drive, and now I was normal sick plus motion sick. Double the fun.
It’s vulnerable moments like this when you realize just how mean kids can be. As I’m puking, not only are my kids not being supportive, they’re mocking me. They are doing impersonations of me puking, as I’m still actively puking.
“I’m Dad. Barf. Baaaarrffff. Haha! What a loser. Is he crying? Hahaha!”
I didn’t know how to handle this situation, so I just went with pure instinct. In between hurls, with spit still dripping from my mouth and last night’s dinner partially on my shirt, I turn and yell at them, “Look at me and shut up! You need to remember that of everyone in this family, your mom is the only one that I picked!”
Melissa blushed, they went silent, and I continued puking in peace.