Intro
My son is now 9 months old, and everyday I’m amazed by his accomplishments, personality, and existence.
And in spite of the fact that I set out to write more frequently about his growth and development in some “dear diary” type blog posts, this is the first one I’ve written since he was born. I wanted to write monthly or quarterly about who Robin was becoming and the milestones he was accomplishing, but life is hard and busy. And as the number of months passed and he grew more and more, the idea of encapsulating the ever-increasing list of fatherhood concepts felt really daunting.
Before I came up with the list that eventually became the post you are reading now, I tried to organize and conceptualize this amorphous meta-analysis of my experiences as a parent in America in 2023. But multiple 1000-word drafts lacked focus and brevity.
So eventually I settled on a 9-item list of smaller and (hopefully) more digestible blurbs that begin to encapsulate what I’m feeling. Enjoy.
I. Revisiting “The Only Rule I Won’t Break As A Parent”
To date, the most quantifiably successful blog post I have written was called “The Only Rule I Won’t Break As A Parent.” The clickbait-y title worked, and it remains my most-viewed post.
Spoiler alert: the one rule was that I wouldn’t lie to my child.
I think that some readers simply rolled their eyes, realizing they got “got” by some kind of Buzzfeed-esque headline. Maybe others thought it was a well-intentioned impossibility.
Go back and read the article, and you’ll see that I wrote it with a bit more nuance than the title might suggest. I wanted to convey that if/when I do lie to my son, the lies are beneficial and free from harm.
So I know you’re all asking, “Alex, have you lied to your son?”
I mean, yeah, totally.
Consider the first example that comes to mind, I come home from serving the dinner shift at the fast-casual chain I work for with a bag of McDonald’s, bah-bah-bah-bah-bah, I’m Lovin’ It. And this little boy gives his small cry, the only vocalization he can make that communicates his desire to eat. I grab the baby-appropriate cereal on the counter, pour some out on the table next to my McDouble and fries. I only give him the cereal, which is on the same plate, and appears to be the meal that I am eating. Is this a lie? Is this harmful? You guys can decide.
II. American Society Loves Dads Who Do The Absolute Bare Minimum
That’s it. That’s the whole bullet point.
The praise I get from women for literally just holding Robin or pushing the stroller or kissing his cheek when I’m in a public place is loud and often. I’d wager that Allison can do the same action and receive zero praise from passers-by.
This might not be a wild revelation. I’m sure that when asked, most of you would assume this is the case. But man, when you’re in it, you just see it so often.
III. Women are clearly the superior sex
This might come across as pandering to my wonderful partner, but I’m fucking serious. The statement has been the case since day one.
In the same vein as bullet point #2 on this list, there is no ratio of the Robin-care that Allison could do that would garnish the same praise from our friends, family, or strangers.
I was recently at the mall holding Robin while Allison used one of the pay-for massage chairs that dot the breezeways between boutiques. Two women in their 50s approached us and one of them said to Robin, “Wow, a day out with daddy, how fun!”
I told them that Mom was just around the corner getting massaged, to which she replied, “you’re a great husband and father.”
Thus, simply existing with a baby for literally 5 minutes got me not one, but two compliments from a complete stranger.
I wonder if has been called great wife for “letting me” get a massage at the mall, or called a great mother for simply holding a baby in a public place.
(And for those of you reading into my syntactical choices here, no, we’re not married, that’s just the phrase the stranger used).
(PS, if you’re a friend who is reading this, go out of your way to tell the young mothers in your peer group how amazing they are. Drop a social media message, tell them in person, shoot them an unsolicited text message saying that you see them. Hit up your mother-friends to hang out more often. This isn’t an Allison-specific thing, but there is a profound isolation and relentlessness of raising a newborn/toddler that I never understood until I lived with it.)
IV. On The Subject of Milestones
Somewhere around age 6-months, Robin waved “hello” to me. It wasn’t a refined and practiced wave a la Princess Diaries, but it was a repetitive movement of the hand that occurred when I arrived at our room. I call it a wave.
But in spite of our best efforts to recreate the wave for our family and friends, we simply could not get it out of him.
Flash forward to somewhere around the 7-month-old mark and we visited Knott’s Berry Farm. As the Grand Sierra Railroad ride tooted its horn and the passengers waved to us while we strolled Camp Snoopy, MY SON WAVED BACK TO THE PEOPLE ON THE TRAIN.
I simply could not believe it. I was so excited at such a mundane activity. I work 40 hours a week, and I am always worried I’ll have a lifetime of missed milestones, but NOT TODAY, GOD DAMNIT. I was really excited to see this one, and I’ll remember this silly, small act for the rest of my life.
Now, on the subject of milestones, there are a few things to unpack here.
The obvious one is the rate at which certain milestones will occur and become repeatable actions. What I didn’t know pre-fatherhood was the lead up to mastery of small coordination milestones. The wave happened once, and then didn’t happen again for several weeks. This has been the case with a few milestones.
Another example was the journey Robin went on to find his mouth. It took immense concentration to place items in his mouth for a while. It happened inconsistently, and sometimes he would hit himself on the nose or cheek with whatever he was trying to put in his mouth. But months later, this is finally second-nature. The rate of milestone accomplishment is slower than I realized as a non-father.
My second thought on the subject of milestones is a concept that I hope I can continue to keep at the forefront of my mind during his development: the only person who can determine if he is “ahead” or “behind” is me.
If you Google search “when will a baby start waving,” the first result will claim “between 8 and 12 months.”
It would be really easy to convince myself that our parenting prowess has created some kind of super-baby wonder-kid who, at the ripe age of 6 months, waved to his father.
But what if he hadn’t waved until 13 months? What if he was “behind?” What if he didn’t roll over until 5 months when the average is 4? Or start teething or talking or reading until far after the average?
Well for starters I don’t know when the “average time to start _____” is. Like, literally any of the milestones, I don’t know off the top of my head. A recurring theme of this blog is that I don’t dive into the parenting sciences or parenting “sciences” either.
And I would imagine that it would be natural to worry if you knew that your baby was “behind.”
But I am of the impression that this is an unnecessary stress on the most stressful thing you can ever do. So long as the baby is happy and healthy, just roll with it. I’m just here to do my best to raise a kind human being.
V. How Do You Guys Have Sex Now?
Oh, you thought this was going to be erotic literature? Did you think I was gonna drop a link to our OnlyFans?
VI. Who is Ms Rachel, anyway?
Some parents are anti-screen, and good for them.
We are not. And good for us.
Now, the age at which children can have their attention ensnared by a screen is startlingly young. It can certainly happen in the first months of life.
And always with the caveat of “I don’t like parenting sciences because I interpret an implicit shaming and it just makes parents feel bad when they’re just doing their best so I don’t read any of it,” I see screens as one tool in the massive kit that it takes to occupy a child’s attention and sustain their growth.
So for me, a kid watching a YouTube video that does not cause explicit harm while simultaneously helping parents get shit done is not a bad thing! And with minimal research and effort, we have found Ms Rachel. You may have seen her around. She has 2 billion video views, over 3 million subscribers on YouTube, and another couple million on Tiktok.
I could create an entire presentation on the Ms Rachel Extended Universe. I started diving into who this person and her channel was, and I realized I had 20 tabs open in my web browser. But the long and the short of it is that Rachel, in her signature overalls and headband, is a YouTuber who makes educational content for really little kids. She was a music teacher in New York City public schools in a past life, and launched this content in response to her son’s speech development (he didn’t start speaking any words until after age two).
The videos apparently incorporate techniques utilized by speech therapists who work with children with speech delays, and the content is steeped in childhood development research. Robin’s favorite videos are the ones that incorporate songs, most of them nursery rhyme types that are recognizable from my childhood. And it’s not just Rachel singing solo. There’s a whole gang of people involved, including Rachel's musical-theater-composer husband, and a revolving cast of New York musicians, dancers, and puppeteers.
Now, whether or not the videos are “good” for my son, I have yet to identify how they are “bad” for my son.
But goddamn, does he love every video on the channel.
While we’re doing our best not to raise an “iPad Zombie,” but it has become a tool that we can incorporate when things need to get done. Those things can be dinner at Olive Garden with my grandma, cleaning the house, and getting lunch ready.
I’m sure we’ll expand on the childhood content someday, but for now, this is literally the only content on the screens he enjoys.
VII. To the “My pets are my kids” people:
(I hesitate to incorporate the concepts in Bullet’s 7 and 8 because I think that people will be offended and annoyed by my take. This isn’t about you unless you make it about you.)
I’ll cut to the chase. Everyone who has an actual human kid is fucking annoyed when you say that your pets are your kids.
The Queen’s corgis don’t get as much attention as a healthy human child requires. (And to no “you” specifically), you don’t care for your “babies” as much as the Queen does. (Not because you don’t want to, but because you don’t have inherited wealth soaked in the blood of non-European people while simultaneously suckling from the teat of the British working class).
The most concise way I can say it is that you get to leave your pet at home for like… literally any amount of time. You can make a 15-minute Target run and leave your cat at home. Nothing bad will happen. You can go to your job for 6 or 8 hours at a time without even thinking about your dog. You can go out to dinner with your friends without finding a babysitter.
I can’t take a shit without making several necessary preparations.
If you leave your newborn baby alone for 15 minutes, you will go to jail and they will take your baby away. It’s about time you (again, no specific “you”) stop using that particular phrase. There are a million more appropriate terms of phrase than “my pets are my children.” Try “my pets are my world,” or “the time and resources I dedicate to my pet don’t leave enough to sustain a human life.”
VIII. I used to think I was tired
It is a wonder I ever thought I was tired before. I wish now that I could have the energy I had in 2018, when I was working full time in a food bank distribution warehouse and attending grad school full time. Or maybe the energy of my 24 year old self that was working 13 restaurant shifts a week and singing karaoke until last call every night. And if I could take back all those 3PM-6PM naps I took in high school to cash them in now, I would in a heartbeat.
Because the exhaustion isn’t just a result of the relentlessness of meeting his physical needs (holding him, playing with him, entertaining him). There’s also the things that keep you up at night when he is sleeping and you’re supposed to be sleeping.
Unless you’re actually rich, there are things you need to be thinking about.
IX. Future Considerations
Before I was taking care of Robin, the stakes were so low when making a plan for the future.
With my first tax return, I took a train out to Riverside to meet a guy from Craigslist about a Ms. Pac-Man machine. And with the cash I got in college graduation cards, I researched one-way flights to Europe.
Did I do the same with my first ever child tax credit I got last month? (Btw, if you’re reading this, thanks Joe Biden).
Hell no!
I paid off a couple of credit cards and never looked back.
Because five year plans actually have to mean something now.
When I was 21, I was a college dropout hiking the Appalachian Trail on somebody else’s dime. The five year plan was to work at hostels in the winter and backpack in the summer.
Obviously that didn’t happen. But in five years, Robin will be in Kindergarten. Where we want to live, the lifestyle I want him to have, and the education I want him to receive are often heavy on my mind.
That planning must start today. These first 9 months have flown by, and there is no indication that my perception of time will slow down.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, the parents I’ve met in the past are whispering “it all happens so fast.”
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