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How to Be a Dad

Night of the Living Dad

Posted by Charlie, under NOTEBOOK

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When the trial by fire starts with a newborn, and to some degree the last few months of your wife’s pregnancy, you begin accruing a sleep deficit that can’t be solved by any grandstanding politician standing on a soapbox made of bullsh*t. It’s a freefall into the land of the weary sleepwalkers who birthed us and you’re paying the ferryman for a trip to the land of the sleep-deprived with physical currency: your youthfulness.

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A couple of months ago, we did a little diagram about the similarities between babies and zombies. We concluded that babies and zombies were nearly one in the same, I mean just look at them. Swerving little eating machines.

For the past 22 months I have become an undead-version of myself. I have forked over my younger appearance and brain function to my son. Don’t get me wrong, he deserves it, but it’s a little insane how much of a zombie I’ve become. I’m waiting for George Romero to come bounding through my front door.

I’ve always had a fickle relationship with sleep. I had what some might have considered off-and-on sleep disorders. Throughout my life, I’ve walked and talked and screamed in my sleep. But my sleeplessness catalyzed when my wife got pregnant. I began working, staying up late, writing — doing anything I could to make money, make a lasting endowment for my family. With my little fetus good luck charm, I booked 12 national commercials, worked on TV shows, wrote and shot a film that went to Cannes… I was on fire inside, but the future was staring me down. I knew I had limited time to stockpile cash and cred, and I was okay with sleep being the only casualty of World War Baby, even as people said, YOU SHOULD BE GETTING AS MUCH SLEEP AS YOU CAN BEFORE THE BABY COMES. I can be stubborn. Be forewarned.

spacer Any of these sound familiar to you, parents?

I come from a long line of late-night thinkers and tinkerers, a species of night owls who wallow in self-doubt and aimless, obsessive thinking past 10:00pm. My father had it. His father had it. His father had it too, but as I recall he drank it away. Dad really worried about being average. He didn’t lord it over us as kids like his father did to him, but you really got the sense that it combusted inside the guy. It was a kind of carcinogen he’d had about his own creative talents and his place in the world. Eerily enough, my father died of cancer and his father, a heart attack at the Taj Mahal. At a certain point that self-loathing flame catches a vein or a lymph node.

Somehow, I managed to pick it up. He never rode me about my creativity, never put anything on me but the confidence he had in my “ethos” and willingness to follow my own path. He, mistakenly, thought I was more evolved. He explained to me that I was a special person, that I had taught him as much or more than any teacher he’d had in his life. That was strange to hear as a youngster. A grown man was learning from a child.

Finn is almost two years old. He looks more and more like a young boy, no longer the worm-like creature attached to a guy’s chest in Total Recall. He has taught me so much about myself, so much about what’s important, so much about the resistance of poop stains to be removed from my nicest clothes. He’s one of my finest teachers. He’s helped me realize that as parents, we trade our youth with our children and in return they help us live forever through them.

But I keep asking myself, how much I should tell Finn about what I see in him? Should I tell him that he’s a special person? Should I point out that he makes people happy, even very, VERY unhappy people? That he radiates radness? Or should I let him figure out he’s got something inside that separates him from most others…

I don’t know, you tell me…

What should Charlie do about his son?

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32 Comments

32 Responses to “Night of the Living Dad”

  1. spacer Cheryl M. says:
    July 28, 2011 at 6:24 am

    I don’t know if you or your wife suffer from this, but I sure as hell do…Mommy (or Daddy) Brain.

    Our beautiful, sleep-robbing, ear-splitting children not only rob us of our youth, but they also suck your brains out – just like a zombie! I would swear in court that each time you have a child, they get half your brain. Since I’ve got two, that would leave me with 1/4 the brain I started with. I’ve been on the highway and forgotten where we were going, gone into the kitchen only to forget what I went in there for, and forgotten what I was saying halfway through a sentence!

    Reply
    • spacer charlie says:
      July 28, 2011 at 7:28 am

      Brain function dies in a zombie ergo WITH US PARENTS TOO. My short-term memory has become mush. Add to that the fact that I’m stubborn and have to be right, and you have a WMD on your hands. spacer

      Reply
    • spacer Kimberly says:
      July 28, 2011 at 12:29 pm

      Mommy Brain is the worst!

      Reply
  2. spacer Amit says:
    July 28, 2011 at 7:10 am

    Less dead, more dad!
    I think that only now, 7 years after my last birth i am starting to get my brain back (well, some will say i never had it to begin with :- P)
    And u should tell him he is the best thing in the universe, as during his life he will bumped into those bad people that will tell him differently, don’t worry, so his parents should be this safe place where he can be the best cub in the whole world..

    Reply
    • spacer charlie says:
      July 28, 2011 at 7:29 am

      7 YEARS??? NOOOOOOOOOOOO…..

      Reply
      • spacer Amit says:
        July 28, 2011 at 7:34 am

        Hi, i was doing pretty well with my 75% brain!

        Reply
    • spacer Nicole in Portland says:
      July 28, 2011 at 10:00 am

      Yeah, my husband wants us to start this business thing but I can’t think rationally enough to make sure that I don’t burn our food every night. My youngest is 12 months. I heard the average was about 7 years and think it might be longer for stay at home parents that don’t get much other adult interaction! My friends that went back to work seem MUCH smarter than me now. *tear* I used to be an intellectual.

      Reply
      • spacer charlie says:
        July 30, 2011 at 4:04 pm

        The word “intellectual” is now too big for me. I am “Charlie” from Flowers for Algernon.

        Reply
  3. spacer Jenny Z says:
    July 28, 2011 at 7:41 am

    I think it’s important not to overdo saying “you’re special”… self confidence is important for a kid, but so is knowing that they’re NOT the center of the universe. I’ve seen the victims of the overuse of “you’re special”, and it ain’t pretty.

    But it’s certainly not wrong to tell him every now and then!

    Reply
    • spacer charlie says:
      July 28, 2011 at 7:56 am

      But what if my child is the center of the universe? What do I do then, besides recalibrate universal maps and navigation tables?

      Reply
  4. spacer desboobs says:
    July 28, 2011 at 8:06 am

    this site is AMAZING. I’m trying to get my bd to read it.
    Kudos to clever and awesome dads.

    Reply
    • spacer charlie says:
      July 28, 2011 at 9:43 am

      Thanks!! We work our asses off on it so it’s nice when someone stops by and says we’re rad. YOU’RE RAD!!

      Reply
  5. spacer Christine says:
    July 28, 2011 at 9:44 am

    I would say, Tell Finn a bit of how he is without inflating his ego too much. Some things a child must learn on his own whereas somethings a parent can teach/tell him. As he gets older, you’ll see where to “inflate his ego” and where not to. Go with the flow.

    Reply
    • spacer charlie says:
      July 28, 2011 at 12:23 pm

      It’s funny. I’m sort of divided about the germ “arrogance”. I Thimk false pride sucks. But I also believe there are components to humbleness that reduce the power of a person. It’s okay for a person to know that they’re a good, strong individual. Knowwhatimean?

      Reply
      • spacer Christine says:
        July 28, 2011 at 1:15 pm

        I hear ya. Just go with the flow and do what you think is best as a parent. Your instincts must be good because, from I saw this morning, that child adores you. All I can say is thumbs up!

        Reply
  6. spacer Nicole in Portland says:
    July 28, 2011 at 9:56 am

    Sleep? My husband never lost any sleep over the baby. Maybe two weeks out of his 12 month life. The most sleep he would lose was, “You might want to get our son, he’s crying.” Him being the one who works outside the home, I guess I never fought him on it. Since my sleeplessness began the last few months of pregnancy, I’ve found that I have white eyebrow hairs coming in and white hairs coming in on my noggin. I thought they were suppose to make you old as teenagers. Boy was I wrong!!! He’s 12 months and STILL not sleeping through the night.

    As far as telling him what you see in him, I would to a degree. They change, not only physically, but mentally. I mean, at 2 my oldest had amazing rhythm and I figured the boy was going to grow up to be a drummer. At almost four, the wonderful rhythm he had before has decreased and now he’s become a bookworm. So, there’s no telling where Finn will go and what he will do. He’s awesome for having parents that care about him like you do. He WILL do great things!

    Reply
    • spacer charlie says:
      July 28, 2011 at 12:34 pm

      Yeah Finn has never been a good sleeper. Still isn’t great at it. I guess we just acquiesced to his nightly demands too many times and are paying the price. But he’s a good man.

      My current thoughts on what to say to him are something on the order of teaching him special every person, including him, really is. That way I can teach him to be of service with his super powers.

      Reply
  7. spacer Midgetturtle says:
    July 28, 2011 at 11:57 am

    Even though my parents praised what they believed to be my innate attributes, they didn’t give frivolous praise. I think that is the key.

    Reply
    • spacer charlie says:
      July 28, 2011 at 12:36 pm

      Frivolous praise seems to devalue the praise given. It’s true. If every one gave out gold coins any time someone took a poop, there’d be a lot of gold coins and poops. … I need a nap.

      Reply
  8. spacer awesomesauciness says:
    July 28, 2011 at 12:07 pm

    *rubs temples*

    Mommy to four, Grammy to six, so let me be (one of) the first (only?) to say this.

    Knock it off.

    Seriously, Finn is adorable and sweet and loving and he will grow up to be whatever’s hardwired into that li’l brain.

    If that means he stays awake nights, preparing for the zombie apocalypse or training as a ninja, then that’s what will be.

    Don’t overthink. (should I have just said, “Don’t breathe”?)

    Really, kids are awesome, amazing, intelligent and intuitive.

    Our jobs are to keep them (mostly) from danger by letting them go into the fray.

    At two, admittedly “fray” may mean eating questionables off the floor, but you get what I mean.

    The last thing a two, seven, or sixteen year-old needs is for us to unload our psyches on them.

    Teach your little man what it means to be a big man and you cannot go wrong.

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