Men are miserable when their wives are pregnant because, let’s face it, we don’t have anything to do. Present for the conception, we’re then faced with nine months of absolutely no specific responsibility. We have nothing else to do but wait for the baby to be born. And guys stink at having nothing to do. Fortunately, hormones can make women very demanding during pregnancy so there’s never a shortage of things to do. Whether it’s fulfilling some strange desire for Tacos or painting the baby’s room yellow because she didn’t like the shade of teal you painted it last week, there are jobs to do. There are so many layers of paint in the baby’s room that I can now touch both walls with my hands while standing in the middle of the room.  But that’s OK. Men want jobs. 

Now there’s one exception to my little job rule. My wife asked me to read a parenting book and it sat on my nightstand for months. Every few days I’d cleverly shift it or just leave it open at a random page so she’d think I was reading. I don’t do instruction manuals. I figure that I’ll figure it out.  But because I’d never read a single thing about how babies are born, when my precious baby daughter was first presented to me for the first time by the nurse all I could think was “What’s all this gunk all over her? Nobody said anything about gunk. There’s no gunk on babies in movies.”

And then the doctor handed me a pair of scissors to which my thought was “No. It’s a girl. We don’t need these.”  Yeah, I had no idea what I was doing. I’d gone rather quickly from having nothing to do for nine months to knowing I had to do something but having no idea what. I was actually a little surprised that just by holding my baby I wasn’t magically transformed into Dad. I was still just Matt with no idea when to change the baby, when to burp the baby, when to play with the baby. I didn’t even feel comfortable with her in my arms. I knew I had to support the head but I couldn’t find the comfortable spot.

I was also worried for my wife who still seemed to be delivering all sorts of gunk that I thought she probably needed so I pointed out the largest gunk pieces to the nurse who smiled at me like I was an idiot who didn’t read the book on the nightstand. (What?! I thought I saw a spleen!) The two following days in the hospital were some of the greatest of my life. The baby pretty much slept the entire day, waking up once in a while to squeak and I’d feed her. People would visit and ask to hold the baby and I’d hand her off. The nurse told me that the baby looked exactly like me but I told her that as I’m short, chubby, and bald most babies look like me. I said I could go into the maternity ward and walk out with pretty much any baby and nobody would question. (Note: Nurses don’t seem to appreciate jokes about stealing babies from maternity wards. I think I’m on a list.)

My wife slept a lot those first two days while I watched the People’s Court marathon and tried to find a comfortable way to hold the baby. My wife woke up once in a while and apologized for falling asleep and I tried to look beleaguered but forgiving. It was great because it gave me the illusion of competence. It’s easy to be competent with nurses and grandmothers behind you.  But then it happened - the nurse told us it was time to bring the baby home. I always knew in my head that I had to bring the baby home but that’s different from actually bringing home a completely helpless little human being who doesn’t speak, cries a lot, and has mood swings that would make Sybil be like “Dude.”

I thought “I HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO PROPERLY CARE AND FEED LITTLE HUMANS!!!!”  I couldn’t help but think that on the way out of the hospital some alarm was going to go off alerting everyone that I had no idea how to take care of this baby. Some kind of baby recon unit would be dispatched. I wouldn’t even put up much of a chase. I might dart around to make it look good but hey, I was in agreement. 

For the first time I agreed that it took a village to raise a child because I was the village idiot. I was pretending to be a Dad but I was still just Matt pretending to be Dad. When the nurse rolled my wife and baby out to the car I picked up the baby and placed her in the infant car seat but the straps were a little tight because she was a big baby. The nurse suggested that I should change the straps to the next level. She might as well have suggested I create a Black hole using fusion technology and a monkey wrench.  For a minute or two I fumbled with the straps and when I pulled out the car seat out of the car entirely and placed it on the trunk my wife and the nurse looked at each other and smiled. The nurse smiled because she suspected I was an idiot. My wife smiled because she knew I was an idiot. 

Fortunately, when we got home my mother and my wife’s mother were around for the first few days and I was able to go to work and just be Matt. I knew how to be Matt. It was Dad that confused me. But eventually my team of grandmoms was gone. And we were alone!  How would I know when to feed, change, burp, play? I didn’t know the baby’s noises yet. My wife seemed to know a lot more than I did. And don’t say it was in the book because I think women just know these things. It’s in their DNA or something. My double helix is baby-less. 

I remember a few nights after we brought the baby home she made some fussing noises in the bassinet at around three a.m.. I looked over at my wife who hadn’t heard her. I’d learned that sometimes the babies make a little noise but just go back to sleep. So there I was laying there in the dark and the baby didn’t make anymore noise.  And I think this is the moment I became a Dad. A normal person would just think the baby fell back asleep so I should go back to sleep as well. But a Dad doesn’t think that way. Not at all. Lying there in the dark my mind created awful scenarios of why the baby might be silent until I had to get up and check her. So I eased myself out of the bed, crawled quietly over to the bassinet and poked my head over the top to peek in praying intermittently “Please be ok,” and “Please be asleep.”  I saw the baby’s form lying there and waited for my eyes to adjust. I gently laid my hand on her belly to make sure she was O.K. and was assured by the gentle rising and falling of her belly. I looked at her face and her eyes came into focus. Her beautiful little open eyes stared back at me in the darkness. Very awake. For me it was a nice moment where we just looked at each other. To her it probably looked like a crewcutted moon had just risen over her bassinet but she seemed calm. 

As we were both awake I picked her up and I fed her in the playroom. I didn’t find the comfortable way to hold her yet so I just kind of held on to her. After I fed her I worried that she’d get a rash so I changed her diaper. I burped her because I was worried she’d have gas and I walked with her because I was worried she’d cry and wake my wife.

So here’s the thing that I don’t think any instruction manual tells you. (I actually don’t know if they do or not because I still haven’t read any) As a parent you’re not given any special knowledge. You don’t know anything so you worry about everything. It’s all about worry. I think worried parents are good parents.

Parenting is a vocation to worry.  So for nine months I had nothing to do until the baby was born but now I always have something to do. I worry. I hear crying from the bassinet so I pick up the baby. Why? Because I’m worried something’s wrong. I don’t hear anything from the bassinet? I’m worried so I pick the baby up to make sure nothing’s wrong. I drag myself out of bed because I worry that the baby will wake my wife who’s been looking tired. I worry about sending my kids to college so I work harder.

Nowadays people see me with five kids and think I know what I’m doing. I don’t. It’s just that I know what I don’t want to happen.  And like I said earlier, men are happy when there’s something to do even if it’s just creating worst case scenarios in our heads and then doing everything they can to ensure they don’t come true. That’s my job. I’m a Dad. I see the bad things coming and I fend them off.  Take it from the guy who didn’t read any instruction manuals, with parenting it isn’t that hard to learn what to do. It’s just hard to do.  So here’s my parenting advice. Read the book on your nightstand, paint the room yellow or teal, prepare yourself for gunk, cut the cord, and worry. Worry lots. It’ll help.  And don’t bother trying to find the comfortable way to hold the baby. The baby will find the comfortable spot. You just have to hold on.