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| Realizations come like the dawn to new parents, but not until reality zaps them like an electric fence. |
Growing up on the farm, my father told me repeatedly that the electric fence surrounding the pastures would poke me if I made bodily contact with it. I conceptually understood what he was saying, but I had no way of knowing that the "poke" was -- at once a zap in my fingertip and a sickening thud in the middle of my abdomen -- until I actually touched the damn thing.
Similarly, knowing what kind of parent you will be is not really possible until you actually touch the live wire.
Even though I might be a different kind of parent to a different kind of baby, I generally know what to expect. Not much is going to shock me this time around.
I "know" there will be sleepless nights and unshowered days; crying jags (the baby's and mine); and wild vacillations between unbearable love and unbearable exasperation. I know about walking around with the odoriferous mix of lavender-scented lotion and milk spit-up always clinging to every article of clothing you own. I know how much of a change it will be to bend every adult thought, moment and hope around the demands of a tiny little person who cares not that you once had a career and a sex life.
I know how to encourage the various stages of physical, mental and emotional development, and how a toddler will totally have his own way of doing all of that despite my best efforts. I know that I prefer to give him real food over processed junk, medical terminology over goofy labels for body parts, PBS over Cartoon Network.
I know he'll grow like a weed and get filthy anyway, so most of his wardrobe will come from thrift shops. I know he'll be equally curious about his mommy's makeup and his daddy's shaving cream and that it won't freak me out if he comes out of the bathroom with eye shadow on his chin and foam on his arms. I know to organize his room and play areas into "centers" just like a preschool does, making it that much easier for him to learn early how to pick up his own toys.
I know that school is his job, and that I'm not spending my valuable time doing his homework. I know that sports or band or chess club are his activities and his chance to have a life apart from me, and that I'm not spending my valuable time sitting in a lawn chair watching his practices. I know that he will be expected to mind his manners, help out at the farm, go to worship, and be nice to every person and creature he meets.
I know I don't know everything, but I know I've tested, failed and succeeded enough to be confident about parenting. I've had plenty of advice and criticism, thank you very much (sincerely, some of it was helpful). I got this.
My husband? He has yet to be zapped.
Gabe was fully cooked once that egg ever came to live with him, so his role has been more like what he assumes as an officer with any new able-bodied seaman that comes his way, teaching adult tasks by example. When Gabe blundered through the sliding screen door, Dan just got his tools and talked Gabe through the repairs. The next time Gabe knocked the door off its track, he muttered a curse under his breath, got the tools and fixed it himself, without even been told to do so. Ta-da!
Dan shared with me that during one of his recent sea cruises, he spent many a long watch wondering what kind of parent he would be to our baby. He said he felt much better when he realized that I already was a good parent and that he just had to be the one following my example this time.
That was a really nice compliment, and frankly a good plan, but he will need to find his own way too.
He will have to face that moment when he discovers his son is painting his lawn mower with mayonnaise, and put to the test all of his preconceived notions about discipline as a teaching method and not a punitive method, and somehow find the strength not to drop-kick that kid to the moon like he will really, really, really want to.
He will have to find an answer when his naked son toddles up to him and asks, "Daddy, when I do this to my penis, why does it do that?"
If he ever responds with, "Ask your mother," I will remind him that I don't mow and I don't have those parts. Totally his area.
He will have to change diapers, read aloud stories, and scrape pureed squash off the baby's face and back into his mouth, over and over and over. He will have to bandage boo-boos and attend parent-teacher conferences. He'll know that thud in the gut when he sits up all night long, praying that the fever leaves the most precious grip on his heart he has ever known.
He may have other challenges, too, like figuring out how to parent when he is away for months at a time on his ship.
I know he'll be just fine. Once he gets poked for real.
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