You'll understand when you have kids

Did anyone ever say this to you? Have you ever over heard someone else say "you'll understand when you have kids"? Although this statement seems like a classic from a bygone era, it endures. Despite its persistence, I don't know why people say it. Well, maybe I do, but still, if you're on the receiving end, what are you supposed to say?

I would argue that people who don't have kids do actually understand what its all about. Not all the painful details mind you, but well enough. Which might begin to explain why people are waiting longer these days to jump into the kiddie pool. Now, I hate to break it to you, but the word is out, having kids changes your life. So much so that a recent article in Maclean's has recently outlined a growing number of people who are deciding not to have kids. Really? This is news? Well, no, but now there is "a tiny but growing minority challenging the final frontier of reproductive freedom: the right to say no to children without being labelled social misfits or selfish for something they don’t want." Has it really come to this? Yes. Should you be surprised? Probably not.

I hope it brings as much joy to your heart as it did to mine to learn of No Kidding! which is an "international social club for childfree couples and singles". I guess keeping no schedule, dressing fashionably, following trends, staying up late (on purpose), sleeping in and going for brunch is unfortunately not as satisfying as it once was? See what happens when parents keep telling non-parents they will understand when they have kids! You send them running into the arms of international social clubs! What's a dad to do who still wants to hang with the cool kids?

Sorry about that, I think I was supposed to be arguing in favour of team parenthood (we're cool, we're hip). But wait a minute now, isn't it the childfree who are supposed to not want to hang with the childbound? But now you're telling me that those hipsters without kids are upset, and aren't gonna take it anymore, because they don't want to have kids but everyone else thinks they should. Okay now I'm confused.

Reading the above article, and especially the online comments (!), I got to thinking how odd it is that these two solitudes seem to have gotten so polarized. Nothing captures this divide quite like stroller angst. Everyone seems to have an opinion on the modern stroller, and much like other things in the world of parenting, ambivalence is no where to be found. Ask anyone and they will freely offer up the fact that strollers are either a sign of impending doom, or manna from heaven. I am all in favour of most anything that makes life easier (I will have much more to say on this in the future) but even I have to admit that some of them are ridiculously large. Still, a friend of mine was recently asked by her childfree friends "you don't bring your stroller into stores with you, do you?" Hopefully they' ll understand what a silly question that is when they have kids. But when my wife and I were living in Sweden a couple years ago, this is exactly what we saw. On a brisk December morning in Gothenburg, we walked past a lone stroller outside a coffee shop with its young resident still bundled warmly inside, sleeping, and of course, happy. The child's parents were just on the other side of the glass. But we just don't roll like that here. Which is a shame.

But here's the rub. You can't ever really understand when (or if) you have kids because every child is unique. Its the same story even when you have kids. Its probably more accurate to say "you'd understand if you had my kid", but that sounds awful. I think you can see why. But if you don't. It's okay. You will. When you have kids.

Nothing to be SAHD about

I’m not going to lie to you. Being a stay at home dad (SAHD) with my son is a pretty sweet deal. I had read and heard many stories of men receiving awkward looks from moms on the playground, and condescending looks from people in shops. Although this may still be the case in some corners of North America, in my corner of North North America (i.e. Canada) I think we’ve moved on. If however slightly.

In many ways I find society treats fathers excellently, with men easily getting 80% of the credit for 20% of the work (the 80/20 rule applied to parenting). Put the kids to sleep... what a man. Give them a bath... so caring. Get up in the morning with them... where does he get the energy? On the other hand it seems the baseline for contemporary motherhood is ever broadening to include every aspect of a family’s well-being while men are lauded for simply going for ice cream. Men – in my experience – are getting anything but the short end of the stick here. Heck, when cruising around with an 8 month old you are pretty much treated like a pregnant woman, maybe even better, because no one treats you like they know what’s best for you.

For kids, playgrounds are obviously special places. One of the many great things about kids is that they are completely unaware of the many rules of normal social behaviour, especially on the playground. Just the other day a five year old walked up and asked to hug my son. During the hug my son countered – quite happily – with an (unsuccessful) eye gouge. I think you get it. For many fathers however, I think they are somewhat disappointed to discover that – even on the playground – certain rules of social behaviour still apply.

I find the stories of self-conscious SAHD’s getting weird looks from mothers on the playground pretty interesting. I think this probably says more about men than women. I sincerely hope that I am not fostering stereotypes about men who stay at home, but I think part of the story here is the fact that many of the men who do, are probably not all that skilled in the art of chatting up women. Why do I suspect this? Partly because I am someone who would never be accused of having this skill. Even though there is nothing more disarming than a child, you still have to do some talking. Sure, the conversation is markedly different from that in a singles bar (or so I am told), but the basic rules of asking questions and paying attention to the answers still apply; even if the context is different. And it is the context of parenthood and child rearing that men don’t come by naturally. Arming yourself with “how old is your son?” and, “what’s your daughter’s name?” isn’t exactly rocket surgery but alas, many of us still need to work at it.

Even though men are increasingly taking on more and more caregiving responsibilities, which is well chronicled in a new book the Daddy Shift, we remain stuck playing catch up. Much of this is of our own doing. My son is now 8 months old, and I can’t recall having a single conversation about fatherhood, parenthood, child rearing etc. with another dad that wasn’t a) initiated and carried by mothers, or b) anything beyond a stated agreement between two men that being a dad is, in general, terrific. Which I think goes part of the way to explaining why we still live in a world with Father Involvement campaigns designed to “show dad’s the critical role they play in their children’s lives”.

Of course I offer no solutions to this dilemma. I won’t allow myself to be added to the list of those calling for men to improve their communications skills. Nor do I accept that everything is worth talking about. Take sleep for instance. I know its a bit rich coming from a guy with a blog, but I would like to make this commitment to you the reader: I will not be writing about sleep. Ever. I have nothing to add to this already well-worn ground.

I guess if men don’t really talk to each other, there will always be books. Chances are if you are reading this, I don’t need to say anything more about books on child rearing. The thing is, I can’t quite bring myself to take more than a cursory glance at it. I know I should. But I just can’t, at least not right now. Perhaps I will eat my words, but I just feel too busy playing to be bothered to read about it. And the fact that hanging out with an 8 month old actually feels pretty easy most of the time, at least when I don’t allow the feeling that I actually have no idea what I am doing to creep into my thoughts (maybe books can help with this?). It all bears mentioning that my wife has, of course, done most of the heavy lifting getting us to this point (see: the 80/ 20 rule). At the same time, I am under no illusions that raising kids (especially a group of them) is or will be easy. Its just that it seems so right now.

Don't children like other kinds of music?

Maybe I shouldn't be surprised that a category for children's music exists. A device exists for warming baby wipes afterall. This device certainly occupies one end of the derriere care spectrum. At the other end we have the kaidankgu (open crotch pants) worn by toddlers in China, which, much to my dismay, are apparently on the way out. But this is supposed to be about music.

Right, children's music.

Its amazing how many adults have a strong affinity for children`s music they listened to when they were kids. Now, we have a couple of Raffi albums that would not get played except for the simple fact that my son loves the stuff. But will he love it when he grows up? I kind of hope not.

Not that children's music is all bad. Take some of Will`s Music, a friend of mine who happens to be a children`s musician. He has a song Let`s All Dance. I get that. Dancing with the Lad is definitely one of our favourite things to do. But I can`t say as if we dance to children`s music. Whether you love them or hate them, Vampire Weekend remains an enduring favourite of his. Am I the only one who finds it odd that, aside from children`s music, classical music seems to be the only other type of music recommended for development. Which may be true (I don`t really care), but I think that may say something about the extremes of modern society. Is there nothing in between?

Ahh, but of course there is. The good folks at Putomayo have produced world music that is bound to appeal to both sophisticated parents and their gifted children. Which hasn`t yet made it on to the list of stuff white people like, but I am sure is bound to. To be fair, I certainly have more room in my heart for Putomayo Kids than I do anything in the Rockabye Baby collection, which "tranforms timelesss rock songs into beautiful instrumental lullabies". The sound is eerily reminiscent of a low-fi karaoke machine playing muted melodies in a bar on a passenger ship in the Phillipines where I once had the pleasure of passing time. Yes, its that good.

Thus far I have noticed one enduring theme of the modern parenting world, there is something for everything. Still, I have to admit the idea of making children's music that appeals to parents for more than nostalgic reasons is clever. But don't we already have music like this? Music that appeals to children and adults?

Oliver Sacks' new book Musicophilia explores the idea of humans as a uniquely musical species. Apparently chimpanzee's can't dance. Who knew? According to Sacks, music occupies "more areas of our brain than language does". Without getting too spiritual about it, I think music -- in one form or another -- resonates on a deeper level than most things. And as long as your name isn't Navin Johnson, you are bound to have at least a bit of rhythm somewhere inside you. So maybe it doesn't matter what type of music you listen to with your children.

From where I sit in my rookie season of fatherhood, it seems that much of the rest of my life will be about finding things to share with my son. He doesn't have to like the things I do, but still, there are any number of things we can enjoy together. I'm just glad one of those things doesn't have to be children's music.

A beginning, of sorts.

All life is about beginnings and endings, in one way or another. For myself, life as stay at home dad recently began and will end in approximately four months. I hope to create a record of sorts here, of what I did with this time. Perhaps more importantly, I hope it will serve as a record for my son of both him and me at a point in his life that he (and even me for that matter) is unlikely to remember, although my earliest memory is of walking for the first time (go ahead and ask my mom, it happened just like I remember it, and let's just say I walked before I was 6). In any case, I hope to write something that he might have at least a passing interest in reading some day. But I won't be writing directly to him, cause I think that's just too weird to read.

I initially conceived of putting pen to paper here during an evening where my son was particularly unhappy about the prospect of going to sleep and was making quite the ruckus. Social convention dictates that I now add that my son is a very happy, joyous, loving, intelligent, alert, inquisitive, advanced, and progressive child. I don't want to put too fine a point on it, but he is in general, a great baby. But in this instance, he yelled, loudly, and at considerable length. So much so that a random person might take it upon themself to offer the opinion that there is something wrong with him. Which is what happens every time we take a long flight. OK so we have only taken two long flights, but random strangers offered this opinion both times. I wonder at which point it occurs to certain individuals that it would be a good idea to inform parents that they feel something might be wrong with a baby who is unhappy on a plane. Of course there is ruddy well something wrong, he hates being on an airplane. Which, come think of it, isn't much different from the general population. The only thing different is that babies (and children to a lesser extent) are more or less free to express themselves exactly as they feel at any particular point in time. Do you know that screaming child at IKEA? Have you seen that guy at IKEA on the verge of tears as he mulls his stunningly modern Swedish design options for furnishing his home? Same person. The only thing separating them is a few years and the general dignity that prevents most adults from completely losing it in furniture stores. Not that I long for a world where everyone acts like babies. Rather, I am more interested in the aspects of our demeanor first expressed in childhood and how they manifest (or not) in adulthood. Which is what I somehow hope to capture here. Or maybe I will just write about being a dad.