To say that this whole thing has been easy would be a bit of an exaggeration. Mommy and Daddy have both had moments when they frustrated each other enough to make the Pope kick out a stained glass window.
There are conflicts over all sorts of things. Much like the rest of life, there are different expectations and different ideas about how each should go about their day and the process of raising a kid. Sometimes Daddy doesn’t do enough of the required reading or maybe as much of the housework as might be expected of him. Sometimes it feels like Mommy forgets that even if she doesn’t understand why something like boxing makes Daddy happy, the fact that it makes Daddy happy ought to be enough.
After all, Daddy doesn’t spend his time out at bars, carousing with people of questionable character and whatnot. At least not in Dallas. Daddy has also committed to cutting that way down when he gets back to Seattle. He realizes that fatherhood is difficult enough without living the life he was leading before fatherhood. And realistically, Daddy certainly doesn’t want Baby Girl to get the impression that hanging out with the some of the assorted hooligans Daddy has in his contact list is the best way to go through life.
So there’s a give and take in this whole thing. And sometimes the give and the take are at complete odds with each other.
So what do you do?
I suppose it comes down to a combination of compromise, capitulation and acceptance. Daddy has accepted that for the time being, his career as it were, is on hold. Right now Mommy pulls down more than Daddy could, and as much as that might bruise Daddy’s ego, it certainly isn’t anything he can change at the moment. Raging at the perceived iniquities of life rarely does much other than exhaust one, although there the occasional cathartic element to the experience.
Daddy is also the one who expressed a concrete desire that at least one parent be home with Baby Girl during the time in which she is under our direct control (until she is 18). Now that it turns out that Daddy is the one that has to do that, I can hardly backtrack and hope to maintain any shred of credibility.
Mommy on the other hand has accepted (for the most part) that Daddy is going to spend a good chunk of his free time at the gym learning the practical applications of applied violence. She really hasn’t accepted that Daddy is committed to doing this without health insurance, but she tolerates Daddy (for the most part) because the gym has turned into Daddy’s stress outlet, social life, and only way to maintain some semblance of masculinity while covered in baby spit, handling baby poop, talking in baby talk and handling chores that would have gotten him shamed out of the Man Club thirty years ago.
Daddy on the other hand has capitulated on a number of issues. Baby Girl’s baths (99.9% of which Mommy handles, but Daddy is committed to doing it her way should he find himself in that situation – see Poop, Pt. 1), will no longer be handled via baby bath barca lounger and hosing off said baby. Daddy will, almost always, end up feeding Baby Girl when she is being fed via bottle, and Daddy will, almost always, be the one to put Baby Girl down at night, and sooth her when Mommy can’t stand to hear her cry.
Mommy has capitulated on the idea that Daddy will ever, and I mean ever, completely give up cursing. Or that Daddy will be the one to change Baby Girl’s diaper first thing in the morning. Daddy is not now, nor will he ever be, a morning person. Mommy has, for the most part, given up on trying to change that. Although I do have to be somewhat more civil than I used to be at Oh-God-Thirty in the morning.
As to compromise. Mommy has gotten Daddy to do most of the laundry, although she has had to concede that Daddy will continue to fold things in a manner which still irks her to no end. She has also gotten Daddy to accept that, despite what he may feel about it, dinner is not whenever he feels hungry, while she has accepted that to Daddy cooking is a contact sport and if things get messy in the kitchen during the creative process, well, dammit, that’s just the way it is. Daddy does clean up afterwards.
It’s a precarious balance with a new kid, particularly when as a couple the idea of a kid was an abstract thought at best. The sudden jolt from carefree vagabond to responsible adult can shock even the most prepared person, and to the unprepared it can feel like a brick bat to the noggin.
Additionally, our situation – far from home, without any kind of a support system – can cause all kinds of stress on a couple. There are days when it is easy to understand why there are so many single parent households in this country. Raising a kid is stressful, and if two people don’t love each other a whole lot, in combination with having a strong well-grounded sense of responsibility, as well as the ability to talk to each other, it would be easy to walk away from the partnership.
No comments:
Post a Comment