—
There are enough dishes in the sink that it could honestly be called a Crystal Palace. I didn’t even know that we owned this many plates and glasses. Perhaps there is a gnome that comes in the middle of the night and has a party with a few friends. Then they steal just one sock. After I wash the dishes, I need to clean the house because it looks like the gnomes are a bunch of disgusting frat boys.
Upstairs are my wife and month-old daughter. Please, dear God, just let them be asleep. I need to finish some chores, and then I have to hunt around for a pair of underwear that was washed sometime this week. After that, maybe I can find time to eat a cracker off the floor.
I have to wash the bottles by hand. They can’t go into the dishwasher for some reason. I don’t know why, no one has told me, and I’m too tired to ask. I have to boil things, wipe them down, make sure that there is not single germ in existence that could enter this house. I’m going to ignore the dirty towel on the floor. It’s probably growing a mushroom, which is not a germ. Right now I am the master of technicalities. It’s ok, I’ve got this. I’m good.
No, I’m not. I suck.
I’m going to crack. It’s a weird thought to have, especially as a new father. None of this is how I imagined it would be. It was supposed to be like Little House On The Prairie. I would get home from work, a little one in a cute pink dress would run up to me, and there would be so many hugs I wouldn’t be able to stand it.
What crap. I want to punch that version of Pa in the face.
Here’s the reality. My wife is having trouble breastfeeding. My daughter won’t latch, which stresses my wife out. So the lactation nut job nurse guilts my wife. Which makes her start to cry. Then my daughter cries. And I sit there in the corner wondering what the hell to do. You want to feel useless? That’s how you feel useless. I just want to make everyone ok.
It wasn’t an easy birth, nope. My wife had a c-section and they stapled her back up like she was a side of beef. She’s bruising. We got home, she went to bed, she popped a staple walking up the stairs. The beginning of fatherhood is bloodier than I thought it was supposed to be.
Then she started having pain in her upper stomach. My wife said it was just discomfort, but it got worse. So guess who had to just have their gallbladder removed? Yup, the wife got surgery number two while crying because the baby wasn’t latching. I couldn’t wash the dishes fast enough. None of this is fair.
I hear a cry coming from upstairs. I run up to try and get the baby before my wife wakes up. She needs sleep. I can’t imagine the toll this has taken on her. If there is a hero in this story, it’s her. What she has gone through makes me feel like crap for bitching about dishes. I open the door to our bedroom. My wife is sitting up in bed, dark circles under her eyes, which are wet with more tears.
“Here, let me help,” I say.
“Why can’t I do this?” my wife says. My heart hurts for her, and I have no idea what to do.
It takes both of us thirty minutes to get my daughter to latch. Eventually, they both fall back asleep. I put my daughter in her crib next to the bed.
Back downstairs, an hour has passed and somehow there seem to be more dishes in the sink. How? How? How? I didn’t even have to use a bottle this time. Are the bottles multiplying because they have germs on them? I am so unbelievably incompetent at life.
I boil water, throw the plastic nipples in, and step over the dirty towel on the floor.
It was supposed to be different. I wasn’t supposed to feel all alone. It’s never this way on TV. The dad on TV always seems to be off to the side, just smiling and passing out cigars. What a useless butthole. It’s a completely unrealistic representation of what fatherhood really is.
Fatherhood, I’m learning, is hard. Yet, no one talks about it. Everything that I have read only seems to discuss these sugar sweet moments that only happen in books written by kindly ignorant old men. Nothing covers this. Nothing.
Fatherhood is trying to find a way not to screw up anything while being constantly aware that you never know if what you’re doing is the right thing. I want at least one article that says it plainly:
Hey new dad. So you might find yourself at two in the morning washing an endless supply of dishes because your wife is physically past her limits and your new daughter isn’t eating. It’s going to get lonely. It isn’t going to be fair.
That’s the story I want. An article like that would at least mentally prepare me for what is happening. Fatherhood isn’t fair, plain and simple. Someone should write that so new dads know. But it needs a happy ending so that we all don’t lose hope.
I reach into the boiling water to grab the nipples. Yeah, I forgot it was boiling.
The pain shoots up my two fingers, the ones that touched the heat before I had time to react. And this is it, this is where I lose it.
I head outside, quiet as a church mouse.
The loudest curse I have ever uttered comes out of my mouth. That f-bomb rings at two A.M. in my tiny little neighborhood. I chunk the nipple, which is still in my hand, into the darkness. It lands somewhere in my neighbor’s backyard. I’m breathing heavy, my own guilt of being inept running through me hurts worse than the burn. Then, somehow, I feel better. A good cuss word in the middle of the night does wonders.
Yes, I lost it. But I lost it outside, where hopefully my wife and daughter couldn’t hear it. And if they couldn’t hear it, then that means that they are still asleep. That’s a win. At this point, I’ll take any victories I can get.
Fatherhood isn’t about fairness. It’s not about who does what and when. It makes no difference if parts of parenting should be someone else’s turn. None of that matters. That’s my moment of clarity as I stare into that moonless night. It’s on my shoulders and suddenly, I become ok with that. At least now I have some idea of what is expected of me. Be there all the time, even if it hurts. It doesn’t mean waiting for the cavalry. That’s me, saddle up.
I head back inside and finish the dishes, forgiving myself for not being perfect. I leave the towel behind, I’ll get it tomorrow. I’m calmer now, less angry. My wife and daughter are asleep, both happier than they were an hour ago.
Time passes quickly since that night. I make it through those tough days, which lead to easier months, and now stretch to years. I learn that parenting is a grind, and over the last twelve years, I keep reminding myself of that phrase: Fatherhood isn’t about fairness. It’s about my family and me being there. Sometimes it’s that simple. My wife eventually heals from her surgeries enough that for some reason we decide to have two more kids. And with each one, I have my motto at those three am feedings: Fatherhood isn’t about fairness. It makes the hard times easier, and those sugar sweet moments, which are plentiful, sweeter.
It doesn’t help much with burns on your fingers, though. I’m still figuring that one out.
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Photo credit: Pixabay