Diary of a Desperate Dad E-Book

Sam Jackson

• Herausgeber: Elliott & Thompson
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 238

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

Becoming a dad is the greatest - and, yet, the most difficult - privilege for any man. Dads don't have the same network of support that mums generally have; they're often back to work, exhausted, after only two weeks of paternity leave; and the world of nappies, bottles and late-night feeds can leave them feeling bewildered. In between teatime, bathtime and bedtime, clearing up sick, many sleepless nights and unexpected outbursts (from both the kids and the adults), Sam Jackson brings the highs and lows of fatherhood to life with hilarious stories and insightful reflections on his own very extensive - and very hectic - experience as a dad of three. Arranged thematically, covering topics such as eating and food, manners and socialising, sibling rivalry, tantrums, and the trials and tribulations of discipline, not to mention coping with pregnancy and birth, this down-to-earth book is full of useful tips on family life with children up to school age, and will appeal to all fathers looking for a humorous and intelligent take on what it means to be a modern dad.

Leseprobe

Diary of a Desperate Dad

One man’s guide to family life from 0 to 5

SAM JACKSON

To O, M and E. Thank you for giving me the amazing privilege of being your dad. And to Dad, for being the best one there could ever be.

Contents

Introduction

Part I: We’re Having a Baby

1. ‘It’s Blue’

2. And Push...

3: The World’s Most Terrifying Car Journey

Part II: It’s a Dad’s World

4: The Daily Grind

5: No Sex, Please, We’re Parents

6: I’m Going to Count to Three...

7: You’ve Got a Friend in Me

8: The Myth of the ‘Work–Life Balance’

9: Just You and Me, Kid

10: Out of Office – Let the Holidays Begin

Part III: The Bigger Picture

11: Great Expectations

12: Pink Versus Blue

13: Tunnel Vision

14: We Are Family

Acknowledgements

Biography

Resources

Copyright

Introduction

I clearly remember the first time my wife and I went shopping for a pregnancy test kit. We could have popped one in the basket at the supermarket, along with the bread, sausages and wine, but somehow, it didn’t feel right. Instead, we made our pilgrimage to the pharmacy and tracked down those magic plastic sticks in the imaginatively named ‘feminine care’ aisle. At the time, I couldn’t understand why they were on a ‘buy one, get one free’ offer. Surely, I thought, you’d only ever need one. And then I realised: if the line on that little stick turns blue, you definitely want to double-check that what it’s telling you really is true. So you do another test, as the enormity of what lies ahead of you begins to dawn.

Nearly six years on from that momentous experience, I somehow find myself in possession of three children, aged from 16 months to five years old. The time between that first pregnancy test and today seems to have largely been composed of a sleep-deprived haze, and I’m still not entirely sure how my wife and I have managed to clothe, feed and care for these three kids in an even vaguely acceptable way. But so far, we’re getting away with it.

If you’re looking for a book from a parenting expert, put this one back on the shelf. To be honest, I reckon that whole term is pretty dubious anyway: after all, is there any child in the world who ever grows up to describe their mum or dad as an ‘expert parent’? When I first discovered I was going to become a dad, I wanted to find a book that gave me a real, unvarnished understanding of what I was letting myself in for. But most of the books for new fathers that I found tended to come from the perspective of ‘Woah! Your missus is pregnant! Time to stop getting drunk every night and start being a bit responsible!’ There also didn’t seem to be anything that offered some no-nonsense guidance about what happens once the baby’s actually born. Ponderings on pregnancy are all well and good, but I wanted to know what I should be looking out for once the baby is on the scene.

So, I decided I’d write the book I wish had been around when I first became a dad. If you’re about to embark on this wonderful, scary, exhilarating and, at times, infuriating journey, I hope you’ll find plenty of encouragement here. The last five-and-a-bit years has been an amazingly happy time, but along the way it’s been incredibly tough, too. From the lack of sleep to the lack of a social life, via the seemingly constant puking, pooing and snotty noses, there have been plenty of moments when the stress levels in our house have reached fever pitch. There have been more than a few incidents I’d rather forget (walking into the wrong delivery room during the birth of my second child would rank fairly high on that list, more of which later) and enough parenting errors to fill an entire book in their own right. But, as I look back, I feel incredibly privileged to have somehow been allowed to become a father.

As that great dad Homer Simpson once commented, ‘I won’t lie to you. Fatherhood isn’t easy like motherhood.’ It’s certainly a lot of fun, though, and one heck of an experience. Whether you’re just about to begin this journey yourself, you’ve already started muddling through fatherhood, or you’re a mum-to-be who thinks the man in your life might be in need of some moral support, I hope you’ll find something here to help you. Failing that, if you’re currently in a blissful, pre-birth state, imagining everything’s going to be plain sailing when your baby arrives, I trust that the healthy dose of reality delivered over the next few pages doesn’t ruin the entire experience for you. It is fun – honest...

Part I

We’re Having a Baby

1. ‘It’s Blue’

‘Fatherhood is the best thing I ever did. It changes your perspective. You can write a book, you can make a movie, you can paint a painting, but having kids is really the most extraordinary thing I have taken on.’

Brad Pitt

If you type the phrase ‘Am I ready?’ into Google, the results are rather eyebrow-raising. For starters, ‘Am I ready to have a dog?’ is evidently much more popular than ‘Am I ready to buy a house?’, but in the list of frequently asked questions, the most interesting one for me comes in at number two. It’s something you may well be musing right now, or perhaps you asked yourself this very question around nine months or so ago. Quite simply, ‘Am I ready to have a baby?’

In short, no. Of course you’re not. You don’t find enough time to see all your family and friends now, so how on earth are you going to manage once you add a baby into the already chaotic mix that is your life? And that’s before we even get on to how irresponsible you are. Have you got a mortgage yet? How many parenting manuals have you read? For your partner’s sake, do you know your way around a breast pump? Come to think of it, you’re too young to have a baby. Or too old. Finally, never mind you – is your wife or girlfriend really ready for the enormity of having her life and body utterly transformed by the arrival of a screaming, kicking, hungry newborn? Of course you’re not ready.

The fact is, none of us is ever truly ready to father a child. You can do all the preparation you want but it still won’t mean you’ve passed the mythical parenting test. Increasingly, people are delaying having children until later in life because they want to try to sort out every other area of their lives before a baby arrives on the scene. That makes sense a lot of the time, but we’re fooling ourselves if we think we’re going to eventually be able to tick the box that says ‘Fully Prepared for Fatherhood’. You can offer to look after your friends’ kids for the day or perhaps have your nieces or nephews to stay for the weekend, but that’s worlds away from having a tiny, newborn son or daughter in your hands – and not being able to hand them back to someone else. Only when that little miracle makes his or her appearance will you finally be able to start putting all your parenting ideas into practice. However, that certainly doesn’t mean it’s futile to at least try to be prepared.

With all that in mind, here are my top four things you can do to help you get ready for the amazing experience of becoming a dad. And the first is perhaps the most important of all...

Resist the temptation to exhibit Boring Dad-to-Be Syndrome

Chances are, you’ve already met Boring Dad-to-Be. Before his partner was expecting a baby, his Facebook posts would be about great nights out with his friends, funny encounters on the bus or requests to sponsor him to go on a free holiday, climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in aid of some spurious charity you’ve never heard of. Now, the sponsorship requests keep coming, but everything else is replaced by pictures of the scan, observations about birthing pools, photos of Mrs Boring Dad-to Be looking a bit more pregnant than she did last time and – worst of all – regular updates on how dilated she is during labour. (I genuinely once watched such an incident unfold, as it were, via Twitter. Goodness knows what the poor woman must have felt about the fact that her husband was sharing the news about what her vagina was doing with his followers – in 140 characters or less.)

The moment you discover your partner is pregnant might well be the most life-affirming, moving, tear-jerking time of your life – only to be surpassed by the day your child arrives into the world. It’s something to rejoice in; but that doesn’t mean you should now become one-dimensional. Plenty of your close friends and colleagues don’t have children by choice, while others may want them desperately but not be able to have them. It’s all too tempting to drone on about topics which may be the centre of your world, but which aren’t even on the periphery of theirs.

In the whirlwind of excitement that accompanies the revelation that you’re going to become a dad, the idea of parenthood can very easily become all-consuming. It’s not uncommon for it to be all you and your partner end up talking about for days on end, but if it’s also the sole topic of conversation with every other person in your life, there’s a danger you’ll end up testing their patience to the point where they avoid conversation with you, for fear that they won’t be able to escape what is, essentially, a one-way discussion.

It’s worth pointing out that, although the arrival of a baby will definitely change your life in the most amazing way, you’re not about to become a completely different person. Too many parenting books, especially those written for dads, seem to want to perpetuate the myth that the birth of a child will result in you having absolutely no social life whatsoever. That’s just not true: long-term, it’s perfectly possible to be a happy, caring parent who doesn’t spend all their spare time cleaning up baby sick or sterilising a set of bottles. Invest in your friendships with those who don’t have kids just as much as with those who do, because after the mad hiatus that follows the birth, chances are you and your partner will be incredibly grateful to still have people in your life who remember what makes you tick.

Of course, you’d hope your friends and family would be interested in your news and lots of them will want to know more about it as the due date approaches. Just make sure that, along the way, you don’t forget to ask them about how they are too. And ultimately, you should never, ever, think it normal to discuss your partner’s labia with them – especially via social media.

Don’t be Anti-Natal

So, you’re about to become a dad, and hopefully you’ve worked out already that much of your life is going to change. If you’re in any way organised or responsible, you might have even started to read up on pregnancy and labour online. But don’t let the internet act as a replacement for real, face-to-face ante-natal classes.

A few months before our son’s birth, my wife and I nervously went along to our very first ante-natal session. I’m reliably informed by some of my friends that their ante-natal debut was akin to some kind of spa day, filled with lovely facilities, delicious snacks and perfectly manicured people, presided over by a zen-like, softly-spoken midwife. Maybe that’s how it works in the private sector, but on the good old NHS we made do with a small room at the GP’s surgery, a friendly but firm midwife and a packet of HobNobs to share around the group. Between those four walls, we encountered a real mixture of south London life, all of us united by the fact that, in a few months’ time, we might well be bumping into each other in the same delivery suite.

Ante-natal classes are a fantastic opportunity to learn about what you’re actually letting yourself in for. They’re also guaranteed to provide you with some memories for life, whether by making friends with the people sitting next to you or having an embarrassing experience with a fake breast. In our case, it was the latter: during the session on breastfeeding, our midwife felt compelled to talk in some detail about exactly how the baby ‘attaches to the teat’ (after you’ve heard that phrase a couple of times, it may take a little while before you’re able look at your partner’s breasts in the same way again). One of the nuggets of information she shared was that ‘often, even if the nipple is inverted, the baby can still attach’. Then, in an act of brazen forthrightness, she enquired as to whether any of the women present had inverted nipples, even asking them to raise a hand if so. Not surprisingly, all hands remained clasped and eye contact was resolutely avoided. Not to be put off, like a conjurer in a circus the midwife then pulled the cord underneath her plastic boob, causing the fake nipple to magically invert.

Encounters like that are certainly memorable, but the ante-natal classes were also a useful time to focus on exactly what we would be going through in the labour ward. And I say ‘we’ quite deliberately. It’s blindingly obvious that giving birth is both traumatic and exhausting for the woman whose responsibility it is to bring a new life into the world, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to acknowledge that it can be draining for men too. Two of my three children have been delivered in theatre, the first by emergency caesarian and the second through the use of forceps and a ventouse (a sort of massive plunger, which looks like it should belong next to a huge toilet). During my wife’s first labour, we ended up going to hospital three different times and the whole process lasted for 48 hours. I was tired, worried and hyper-emotional, and could only stand by and watch as the woman I loved went through something completely alien to her. But one of the main comforts for both of us was that our ante-natal midwife had mentioned most of these things to us in advance. At the very least, this meant we knew that what was happening wasn’t in any way unusual.

Presume your partner knows best

If ever there was a time to veer towards agreeing with your other half, the period leading up the birth of your child is surely it. One of my most obvious mistakes during my wife’s first pregnancy was to question her cravings. When, at the height of summer, she requested a large chicken pie, a packet of sausage rolls and a tin of Heinz tomato soup, I made the mistake of attempting to reason with her. I embarked on an explanation of the benefits of a more balanced diet and the importance of five fruit and veg a day for the sake of her and our unborn child. As I continued to question her sudden appetite for processed meat, she became increasingly puce with rage. Finally, at my ill-judged suggestion that perhaps she’d prefer a fresh smoothie and some grapes, she gave me one of ‘those’ looks (she’s a teacher and can stare with the best of them) and spat through clenched teeth: ‘I. JUST. NEED. SOME. PASTRY. Okay?’

I was so eager to make sure we were doing the right thing, I forgot to acknowledge that, ultimately, she knew best about her own pregnancy. All too often, couples coo ‘WE’RE pregnant’; there’s a nice sentiment there about this being something you’re in together, but ultimately there’s only one person carrying that baby – and if she says she needs a high-stodge ready-meal pie, she should not be challenged.

It’s not just my own approach to my heavily pregnant wife that has sometimes been misguided, though. Prior to the birth of all three of our children, I’ve regularly been taken aback by how complete strangers reckon it’s completely normal to invade her personal space. For some reason, certain people, especially female pensioners, seem to think it acceptable to approach a pregnant lady, slap their hand on her belly and declare to all within earshot that ‘Oh yes, definitely a girl – you’re carrying that one very low’. Inappropriate touching is suddenly deemed to be allowed, in a way that can be invasive and unwelcome. Be ready to remove your pregnant partner from such a situation at speed, or you may end up stuck between two very indignant women.

Reflecting back on the months leading up to the birth of my three children, I think it’s fair to say that my most misguided moment of all came when I stupidly insisted on helping my wife with what, for the purposes of taste and decency, I shall simply refer to as ‘the trim’. As your partner reaches the late stage of her pregnancy, she’ll no longer have an unimpeded view of the area between her stomach and her toes. And if she’s anything like my wife, she may well want to remain neatly trimmed – especially as any number of midwives and medics will be paying close attention to that part of her body in a matter of days. But take it from me: do not offer to assist with keeping everything neat and tidy down there. What’s more, if you choose to ignore my sensible advice and put yourself forward for this task and she declines, you should just leave it at that. Under no circumstances should you insist on helping and leave her looking like she’s been given a pubic haircut by a tipsy trainee hairdresser. Above all, you should certainly not end up sharing the tale at the pub later that evening (another indisputable demonstration of my inadequacies as a husband, which my wife still points out on a regular basis). Slightly delirious about the prospect of imminent fatherhood, I was chatting away to my friends about our experiences so far in the run-up to our first child’s birth, and somehow found myself referring to my new-found topiary skills. In hindsight, this was never going to go down well at home, and to say that my mates were the model of indiscretion afterwards would be an extreme form of understatement.

Avoid parental peer pressure

I have a confession to make: occasionally, I find newborn babies to be quite boring. I realise this is a terrible thing to say, as someone who’s been in charge of a few of them myself. But let’s face it: all babies really do is eat and sleep and poo. And after the first few weeks, they don’t even sleep much. Plus, whatever their parents proclaim, most children aged under six months look exactly the same. That’s not to say I’m not over the moon to have my own or that I don’t love them (I cried like a baby, appropriately enough, when each of my children was born). But kids only really start getting interesting from around a year onwards. Before that point, it’s a pretty hard slog.

One thing all babies have in their favour, though, is that their needs are very simple. A feed, the occasional nappy change and a roof over their heads are essentially all that’s required. Despite this, the marketeers would have you believe that you’re at risk of being arrested for child neglect if you don’t spend your hard-earned cash on a whole load of baby-related tat. It’s not just the people flogging us these goods who try to get us to buy into all this: our just-pregnant friends or the new parents among us can be even worse. Those best mates who would previously sit up with you late into the night to debate politics, religion and the meaning of life now only seem to be evangelical about why Britax car seats are better than all the other ones at Halfords (despite there being a 60 per cent discount on the one you wanted to buy).

The real nadir, however, comes with the parental peer pressure that’s piled upon you when choosing your baby-to-be’s pushchair. In 2013, it was announced that Aston Martin had teamed up with Silver Cross to create ‘the most exclusive pram in the world’. The Silver Cross Surf (Aston Martin edition) is only available in Harrods – obviously – and has all sorts of luxury features including ‘air-ride suspension’ and a certificate of authenticity, something that will obviously be of great use when trying to cram the thing into the boot of the car or lift it onto the bus. Further design details included to tempt the cash-rich clowns who’ll buy this product are its suede-lined seat pad (how do you clean the vomit off that one?) and its fully reclining seat: factors which, according to a Silver Cross spokesman, mean ‘this really is a must-have for the most fast-paced lifestyle’.

Must-have? MUST-HAVE? I’ll tell you, Mr Silver Cross Spokesman, what a must-have is: nappies. Honestly, have a word with yourself.

It’s an extreme, obviously, but this kind of nonsense is one of the things that made me look forward to my kids getting past the baby stage. On the day I went to collect my wife and Child Number 3 from the hospital, I nearly got a parking ticket because someone had turned up on the ward, camera in hand, to try to flog us a ‘photo memory pack’ there and then. Dazed and knackered, we ended up letting the woman take a load of photos, bewilderedly agreeing that yes, it would indeed be lovely to get a photo of our wedding rings entwined around our newborn’s face – and of course, you’re absolutely right, eighty quid is a small price to pay for such a precious memory.

Although most of us don’t have the spare cash to waste a couple of grand on a pram, it’s still easy to end up frittering away your hard-earned money on a whole load of other stuff. Logical as it may seem to spend £60 on a bottle steriliser, if your child ends up being entirely breast-fed for their first 12 months then there is, by definition, no need for any bottles to be sterilised. And there are plenty of things that your son or daughter won’t even notice or will grow out of quickly. Harsh as this might sound, there is no point in ever buying your baby a teddy or a cuddly toy. They’ll receive about 74 of them when they’re born – and anyway, they’ll instantly become attached to just one of them, while the remaining 73 gather dust at the end of the cot. Similarly, unless you and your partner are hermits, you won’t be spending every waking hour at home on your own, so it’s really not essential to buy a bouncing chair, a rocking horse, an interactive play mat, a push-around dog, multiple sets of building blocks and so on. Some babies have so many toys and other paraphernalia to keep them busy, it would take them until the age of 17 to get around to playing with them all.

Sometimes, of course, you just have to go with the flow: in the 39th week of her second pregnancy, despite our house already being overrun with soft toys, my wife purchased a huge teddy for our soon-to-be-born daughter. On the same shopping trip she also bought a single daffodil, which was on its own in a bucket outside the local florist. It was a very sad scene, apparently, which caused my wife to get a little teary; she was desperately concerned about this poor, lonely flower. That evening, much as I was tempted to question why we needed yet another teddy (let alone whether daffodils can experience emotion), I decided to simply nod in agreement.

Clearly, we all want to provide for our children and see them having fun with a variety of games and toys. Our kids change so quickly, however, that by the time your child is aged three, you may well find yourself taking bags of unused baby kit to the charity shop, questioning how it was that you ended up with all this stuff in the first place. It’s the same with clothes: yes, children get covered in mud and egg and vomit (rarely all at the same time, thank goodness) and therefore need a bountiful supply of spare outfits, but when you notice that your toddler’s cupboard is bigger than yours, it’s time to admit you’ve lost all sense of proportion. The most ridiculously costly items of all, though, are shoes. You know, those tiny little things, made of such a minuscule amount of material they must surely cost just a few pence to make? On the contrary, not only is every pair over £30, but they also need replacing on a ridiculously regular basis – something I innocently failed to realise prior to having children. Apparently every child must have brand new shoes and wellies, and a failure to provide them means being officially classified as an uncaring and neglectful parent.

In our commercialised, materialistic world, where sleep-deprived parents can easily be lulled into putting yet another unnecessary child-related purchase onto their credit cards, it’s worth remembering that our children’s needs are relatively simple, and we don’t need a six-figure income to provide for them. What’s more, just as all babies are strikingly similar, the one thing you’ll discover about all prams is that, no matter how much they cost, you’ll still never, ever be able to get the blasted thing to steer in the right direction when you’re in a desperate hurry to get somewhere.

2. And Push...

‘It’s not easy to watch the person you love go through that. At one point in the middle, I had to excuse myself and take 20 seconds in the bathroom to break down, wipe my eyes, beat my chest and man up for her. There’s a reason they don’t let men give birth.’

James Van Der Beek

One thing I’ve discovered about parenting is that it’s awash with code words, hidden meanings and seemingly endless medical jargon. If you think learning Mandarin is hard, try deciphering some of the maternity-speak that frequently gets bandied about. From NCT to VBAC, via the epidural and the ever-so-delightful ‘sweep’ (if you don’t know, don’t ask), becoming a dad involves having to learn some new lingo. There are the hidden questions, too, my favourite being when the midwife asks: ‘And who will be your birth partner?’ – roughly translated as ‘Will he be in there with you, or will you be bringing your mum instead?’

Admittedly, as you may have noticed me hint at a little earlier, I don’t exactly have an unblemished record in this area. Moments after my son was born, I got mistaken for a doctor and went along with it briefly, directing a couple of patients to some ward or other (I was in medical scrubs at the time, and a little delirious). It probably wasn’t the most responsible thing to do, but it felt rather exhilarating. Then, at the birth of my first daughter, I did what every birth partner is surely prone to do, and accidentally walked in on the wrong woman in labour. In my defence, it was very early in the morning, I’d been up for hours, and all hospital delivery wards look the same. No matter where you are in the maternity unit, everything is that shade of slightly-out-of-date double cream: a sort of pale brown hue, punctuated only by the bright blue outfits worn by the midwives. If your partner is giving birth in a large hospital, there will almost certainly be a whole corridor of rooms, many of which contain women in varying degrees of labour.