What Are They Going To Do?

How do you keep them up to date when they don’t really want to be? Which, admittedly, is not very cool. Your new personal brand is Dad. But these dummies don’t know how interesting your baby is. No one wanted to hear about your favorite podcast, The Banana Brothers, either, but now they won’t stop singing the theme song. People don’t always know what’s good for them. You don’t have to listen too much, just long enough to use whatever they say to segue into your baby talk. My dog’s been losing a lot of weight lately, and the vet says that we need to put him on heartworm medication. Offer up something cute, then something boring you want to talk about, then something cute. I can’t believe how expensive diapers are. Before they know why you are talking, you are done. By accidentally wearing a shirt with a little baby throw up on it, you’re helping people remember to talk about your baby without having to make the request. That must be from Stella! I couldn’t believe how silly she was being, and I guess I got a little too rambunctious with her right after she had her six o’clock bottle.

Chip Away The Stone

Soon enough, you’ll be boring people with stories of your cute toddler. That’s the natural progression. Babyproofing depends on how crazy your kid is. My daughter weirdly never tried to turn the knobs on my stove, but nearly every other small child who came over did. So, ya know, nobody’s perfect. Babyproofing is an art, not a science. You can lock up every pile of chemicals in your house, but your kid is going to find the one pile of broken glass that you leave unattended. Your kid will want to put everything in his mouth. Luckily, babyproofing materials are plentiful these days. Pick a danger and the babyproofing industry has got you covered. It might be time to store your knife collection. Babies have a way of finding the weak link in their playpens.

You Can't Always Get What You Want

And you can’t bundle your kid in Bubble Wrap. She has to learn to make small, nonlethal mistakes in order to learn what danger is. Better she learns about danger now, when the stakes are low, than later on, like when she marries that asshole bass player she met at Burning Man. In that case, the Man might be forcing you back to work already. Society tells you that dads are supposed to step it up and be more involved with family life, and when you actually do step it up, it’s like they swat you down, forcing you back to work. You’re supposed to be a nurturer and have a career? It all seems bound to lead to disappointment and guilt as we fail to achieve society’s demands. But men still get a puzzled response when they want to spend more time with their babies. People are like, Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. It’s just, right now, no, no you can’t do that. But, sorry, here in ‘merica, we’ve got to work for our smoked fish. That said, work may be the same, but you are different. Now that you’ve recognized the emotional connection to your new baby, you know that connecting to your clients isn’t that important.

Don't Let It Show

On the other hand, perhaps empathy is just what work needed. Maybe empathy is what synergy means and you won’t have to look that up anymore. It’s not actually that important to wrap up the audit by the end of the month. Not as important as a living thing, not really. Can you believe that coworkers try to describe a marketing campaign as their baby? Can a marketing campaign give snuggles? When you’re at home, you’re answering emails instead of paying attention to your baby. Right now, that dumb guy at work is you. People demand too much of you, and by doing a bad job, you’ll get them to stop doing that. You have but half an ass to give! What are they going to do? Fire a guy who just had a baby? Then start working, ya dummy. Isn’t that also a valid viewpoint? But despite the other ways we dads have benefited from the patriarchy, paternity leave is still rare. Maybe once people see how annoying it is to have you back at work, they’ll push for more of it. Your incompetence might be a force for justice. Wouldn’t it be great if all the annoying men at work could stay home? Then companies would really get something done! Maybe then the Man will finally be a Woman. If only anyone knew how to do it. Sleeping through the night is the beginning of your steady climb back into sanity. At some point, your baby will have dropped her night feeding and will be developmentally ready to sleep through the night. How do we sleep train our baby? No one can tell you what to do to achieve this noble goal. It’s unclear what method is effective, does no lasting damage, and won’t make other parents judge you when they hear about it. Sleep training done. No one has yet to prove that leaving your baby to cry forever does lasting damage to him, and it’s easy, as long as you like screaming. The screaming, the horrible screaming that tears at your every fiber. You withdraw gradually and everything goes fine, like in Afghanistan. If you like nuance or believe in incremental change, you are gonna like this method. Incremental change can feel, well, a little too incremental. Is anything actually getting better if your kid sleeps two more minutes than last month? If not, your child will eventually demand you leave his room, because his college roommate is tired of you. Feels loving, easy to not feel bad about yourself for making tough choices. Or every one of your friends will swear by the one method and act like you are screwy for asking about the other one.