The First Time
I recently took part in a storytelling event in St. Louis with the wonderful St. Louis Storytell. They have built up a wonderful community there, and I was honored to share a story with a great group of storytellers and an attentive crowd. The theme was “The First Time” so I wrote about when I found out I was going to be a dad. Enjoy!
The first (and only) time I became a dad, it was a complete surprise. It shouldn’t have been, though. In hindsight, all of the signs were right there in front of me.
The first one came while watching TV on the couch with my (now ex-) wife, Shari. Our nightly routine was to grab some snacks and sit down to watch Law and Order SVU or New Adventures of Old Christine. So, it was strange when she asked me to put the Lay's BBQ chips away because the smell made her gag.
A few days later, she almost passed out on the escalator in Sears after catching a whiff of some jabroni's overzealous CK One bath. I can't help but wonder where in the mall he was going, smelling and looking like a mid-tier Aeropostale model. Maybe he was headed to cash in on his employee discount and pick up a ringer tee, board shorts, and a Puka necklace? Or perhaps he had a date with that hottie who worked at Auntie Anne’s—either way, godspeed, young man.
The following Monday, Shari made an appointment with her doctor so that she could get back on birth control because she absolutely, 100% did not want to be pregnant. Shari sat in the small room, fiddling with the white butcher paper on the exam chair when the doctor returned. She flipped through some pages on a clipboard and said, “Honey, why exactly are you here again?” And Shari explained - “Well. I want to get back on birth control”. And the part she left out but for sure thought was “because I absolutely, 100% do not want to be pregnant.” The doctor said, “Well, honey, I have some news for you.”
I don't remember the exact words from the phone call; I only remember crying. Not the I-am-about-to-be-a-dad tears of happiness either. They were tears of what-the-actual-hell-ness. I was driving and had to pull over and collect myself. I don't think that was the response my wife expected or needed. She was having her own complicated feelings about the news. "I am going to call my mom. I need someone to be excited about this."
Here's the thing: At that moment, I did not want to be a dad. I had been touring in a band for about five years prior and was newly married for about three years. My band had just broken up, and I was trying to learn to be a human who didn't live in a van with four other dudes. I was also trying to figure out how to be a husband. I spent the first two years of our marriage on the road, touring 200 days out of the year. I needed to learn how to be a full-time partner. If I am honest? I just wanted to join another band and tour again. That was easy and comfortable.
I was also scared. I didn’t know how to be a dad. Growing up, I didn't have a glowing example of how to be a parent. My mom and my dad divorced when I was just a baby. You won’t believe this, but the shotgun wedding between a High School dropout and a suspiciously aged elevator repair man didn’t quite work out. My dad wasn’t around a ton, mainly on holidays and birthdays. My mom, well, I am tempted to say here that she “did the best with what she was given.” However, I know that wasn’t true. She usually did what was easiest or what benefitted her. Often putting me and my brothers in dangerous living situations with her life choices.
I had broken some generational trauma cycles by moving away as soon as I could and forging my own path. But what if I made the same mistakes? There were no guarantees that I wasn't going to mess this up.
I know this is a cliche before I even say it, but everything changed when he was born. All of that worry and fear just seemed to fade away when they brought him into the hospital room for the first time. I remember holding him and looking down at this wrinkly, squirmy little bundle of noises and feeling like someone had just handed me my world.
In that moment, it wasn't some emotional event with tears. It was a call to action. I changed his first diaper. I went and had the car seat professionally installed. Let's go! It is time to parent the heck out of this kid.
Then, we were discharged from the hospital.
All of that fear and anxiety came rushing right back in like someone opened the emergency door on an airplane. The three of us just sat in the hospital parking lot. No more doctors or nurses to help us out. Just two terrified dummies and a tiny, wobbly meat blob that we had to keep alive. Oh boy. I don't think I drove over thirty miles per hour on the way home.
Those first few months were a blur of sleepless nights, diaper changes, and wondering if we were doing anything right.
One of the other cliches you hear constantly as a new parent is: Don't blink. It will be over before you know it. I'm all - OK, Boomer; thanks for the Facebook status, but I think we got this. I'll be damned, though, IT'S TRUE. For his third birthday, we had a Super Mario-themed pizza party, and we had a rap group called PIZZA perform, who had songs all about…. pizza. The Little League games. Marching band. Dungeons and Dragons with his friends. It's all a blur.
I think back to my childhood and everything my parents didn’t see me do. The County Wrestling championship match in middle school. Theatre performances. Dances like homecoming and Prom, where I was named Prom King. Maybe, as a parent, I overcorrected because of my parents’ lack of involvement, but I ensured I was there for everything I could.
He started college last month, and I genuinely feel like I blinked, and here we are. It feels like the time was sucked out of that opened emergency door on the plane, never to be seen again. The boomers were right.
I was listening to a podcast recently where a guy was detailing his childhood growing up with an emotionally unstable mother and the divorce that came from that. As a father now, he said all he wants to provide for his kid is the love and stability that he didn't have growing up. That hit me at my core. That was the root of all of my fears and anxiety as a parent. I started sobbing in the car as I came to that realization. I am emotional now as I talk about it.
Sitting on the other side of my own divorce, it is hard not to feel that guilt of making life unstable. My fear is that when my son hits his 40s, he will take a standup comedy class on a whim. I can picture him in front of a room of people saying, "Thanks for coming tonight, everyone. Did anyone else's dad emotionally detach by telling jokes to a room full of strangers?". I might be projecting, though.
Or maybe he will start unpacking all of this in therapy and realize that it was my fault all along, you know? But you know what? If he does, I hope he knows it's because I showed him that it's okay to seek help and work on yourself.
I can't manage all of that, however. There are no guarantees that I didn't mess it up. Divorce is hard. I don’t say that lightly. It is especially tough on the kid who didn’t ask for it. Sometimes, I start to get down on myself because here I am, perpetuating the same generational trauma that I fought so hard to break free from.
But being free from a cycle doesn’t mean I will never make mistakes. It is how I respond to those mistakes that make the difference. Time after time, my parents chose selfishness and chaos. I choose peace and understanding.
My ex-wife and I have a great co-parenting relationship, and we continue to parent the heck out of our son. We make it a point to attend his events together and to present a united front when it comes to important decisions. It's not always easy, but we're committed to putting our son first.
Recently, we all got together for Parent Weekend at his school. Hearing him talk excitedly about his classes, clubs, new friends, and plans for his future, I felt so proud. This kind, intelligent, and confident young man in front of us - we did that. Despite our mistakes and challenges, we raised a pretty great kid.
He is loved unconditionally, and ultimately, that was the best thing a couple of terrified dummies could have done for that wobbly meat blob.