I’m 34 years of age. I’ve been through school, university, and have worked for nearly fourteen years.
I’ve had friendships come and go, relationships crumble and flourish. I’ve travelled the world and carved out a small space of the world for myself.
My hair is starting to thin, I’m two jeans sizes bigger than in my mid-twenties, and my body is no longer as agile as it used to be.
My birth certificate says I was born in 1990. And yet, I—the person who sits here writing this—was born in 2019.
If you’re already a parent, then you might know where I’m going with this.
If you’re not a parent yet, then here’s a visual example of what I’m talking about. Find someone you know who has had a child in the last five years or so. Ask to borrow their phone, and scroll chronologically through their camera roll. At some point, the photos stop being of beautiful landscapes in faraway exotic locations, or of a pair of lovestruck dopes getting drunk together on a weeknight. At a very clearly defined point, the baby pictures begin. This signals the beginning of parenthood.
To describe the feeling of becoming a parent for the first time to someone who hasn’t made that leap yet is difficult. I’ve tried conveying what it’s like to friends and family members who are yet to have kids1, and everything I’ve ever ended up saying has felt woefully inferior.
The closest I can get to describing it in written form, with all the time in the world, is that the very fabric of your reality and existence has irreparably transformed—forever.
That still doesn’t really feel like enough, but for the sake of brevity—and for the sake of getting on with it—let’s go with that for now.
I still remember taking our first child home from the hospital, about five years ago. We remembered we needed something from the supermarket, so we headed for the Tesco that was on our route home. It was a Tesco Extra—a Walmart-sized supermarket for our American readers. It was just after 5pm on a weekday, so there were plenty of people doing their post-work food shopping. The car park was—as Jeremy Corbyn might say—ram-packed.
It still hadn’t dawned on me that, now I had a child in the car, I could use one of the bigger Parent and Child car parking spaces. So I squeezed the car into a regular bay—one of the only spaces I could find, which ended up being ages from the doors.
I staggered through that car park. The air felt thicker. As I walked further away from my newborn baby, a sense of foreboding draped over me like a heavy quilt. Everything became more urgent. All I could think about was getting back to that car, as if I’d left a piece of myself behind, and was scared it wouldn’t be there when I got back.
As the doors slid open, I emerged into the outside world for the first time. The harsh industrial lighting searing my raw, sensitive soul. My heart raced as hordes of people swirled around me.
I drifted like a listless ship down each aisle, entirely forgetting what I’d come inside for. I tried to remember, but my attention kept wandering to the people around me. They all looked so normal; filling trollies and baskets, chatting with each other, hurrying to the checkouts and on to their next appointment.
Did they not know? Didn’t they realise that the world was not what it was a few days ago, before all this began?
Until then, I’d existed in the post-birth maternity ward bubble. Sure, there was the new phenomenon of nappy changes, and I’d already sampled a taste of what was to come with sleep (or lack of it). But I still felt looked after; even if it was an illusion cast by overworked and underpaid nurses, run off their feet with a dozen other families to tend to.
This first foray back into the world was the first brick being pulled out of my old self. It was the beginning of the demolition job of my former self.
Slowly but surely, pillars of my previous life began to crumble. Every day was truly 24 hours long, and I got to know each and every one very well indeed. The free time I used to save for reading and video games had to be spent on other things. Dinner was no longer something we could both eat at the same time. That new show we wanted to watch? 3am on the iPad with headphones—each with one earbud—while the baby fed was the only opportunity.
Without putting too fine a point on it, I struggled in the first few months. I wrestled with the idea of who I was now, and whether I’d made a mistake ever thinking I was cut out to be a father. There was love for my newborn baby, for sure, but it wasn’t what I thought it would be. It came with so much more. I felt conned, woefully unprepared for what I was always told was the natural progression for someone my age and in my circumstances.
It was in that first year of fatherhood that I went to therapy for the first time. My mind was all over the wall; I’d known it for a while. I needed to scoop up the pieces and glue them back together somehow—and I needed someone to help me figure out which bits went where.
I can’t say therapy solved everything—I ended up going back a second time just before my second daughter was born—but it gave me enough tools to keep me in check and to stay present in moments of high emotion. Even just something so simple as pausing for two seconds before reacting was invaluable—even my sleep-starved brain could understand that one. Being able to calm yourself down and regulate your own emotional state where you once might have blown a fuse is the difference between a good and a bad day. When you’re in the trenches of early parenthood, you need all the good days you can get.
That ratio of good to bad gradually began to tip in my favour; the rebuilding had begun. I knew I wanted to be around more to catch all of the “firsts” live, rather than on a phone screen. I changed careers so that I could work more from home—right before the pandemic started2.
I can’t imagine how hard it would have been to homeschool children during the pandemic—so massive shout out to those who managed it—but raising a baby during that time was hard enough. But in a way, it made life simpler. I realise I speak from a privileged position when I say this, but it was a ‘stop the world, I want to get off’ moment for our fledgling family. Without the fabled village, we had to get on by ourselves—but those good days still outweighed the bad.
As the first couple of birthdays rolled by, I recognised a different person in the mirror. Sure I looked like shit most of the time because I was so tired. But that person had just dealt with a poo explosion on their own in the front seat of their car. The same guy three years ago with glowing skin and no grey spots in his beard wouldn’t have been able to cope with that.
Another thing I definitely wouldn’t have been able to cope with was the birth of our second daughter, who surprised us all by popping out in the car on the way to the hospital. With the ambulance nowhere near, it fell to me to direct traffic (figuratively speaking) and catch baby number two. That, by far, was the most intense experience of my life—but I got through it. I can’t say for sure the old me would have.
The urge to people please became less overwhelming—but not entirely non-existent. There were—and are—still moments where the instincts of the past are closer to hand than the techniques that require work and commitment. The number of times I’ve caught myself mid-sentence and thought, fuck, that’s what my dad would say, is higher than I’d like to admit to. But breaking these cycles is my—and our—life’s work. Perfect is the enemy of good.
I hope that no one takes away from this piece that just because I—or any parent, for that matter—became a dad and lost my former self entirely. Everything I’ve learned through parenthood has made me a better individual, as well. The skills we have to pick up along the way in the million-miles-per-hour pace of living of the modern parent are invaluable, and can be applied anywhere, to all aspects of our lives. It just so happens that, despite being a self-described loner for most of my formative years, I can’t imagine doing anything without my family along for the ride with me.
So, then. Five years into the rebuild. Am I more tired? Yes. Do any of my clothes from before fit me? Not a chance.
But would I go back to how—or who—I was before? Not for anything.
When I wrote the words “five years” just now, I had to stop and stare at them for a while.
Like, what the hell? How is there a five-year-old living in my house? When did this happen?!
It is kind of doing my head in how quickly time is passing sometimes. As they3 say, “the days are long, but the years are short.”
Thanks for reading! I was prompted to write this while thinking of how I’d describe the process of becoming a parent to the various people I know who are expecting their first children. Maybe you know some people in the same situation—why not share this with them?
In case you missed it…
They did ask—I don’t go around talking about this stuff to childless people without invitation.
Not that I had any insider information on that. I’ve never been to Wuhan, I promise.
I don’t know who they are. I never do.
I've been looking at my oldest lately and I'm shocked to realise that he's almost closer to driving a car than he is to the day he was born... Which is just nuts because I still remember the day he was born so vividly (coincidentally in the car on the way to the hospital).
My life before that day was a blur, and everything since has been a blur, but they are two distinct lives. I was born in 2017.