Clueless...

When I had my son, I was clueless about babies. I'd not even put a nappy on before my own baby shower (which I did on a non wiggly, non fragile doll and I still got it backwards).

So naive was I, that I actually mentioned to my mum that two people had sent me muslins before I had Abe, meaning I now had six of them. Six! Of course, I'd never need six muslins, would I?! She had the good grace not to say anything, and naturally, within the first few hours of Abe's birth I learnt that I'd probably need about six muslins an hour if I wanted to keep myself even partially free of poo, vomit and breast milk...

Yes, clueless about parenting in my case was an understatement. I think I'd held a baby on the odd occasion. Awkwardly and only in order not to offend a new mum. But that was it. So as you can imagine, life as a mum was a bit of a shock for me; even with no actual expectations of what it would be like anyway.

For a long time, I thought this total lack of anything child related on my radar for 35 years of life pre Abe went a fair way to contributing to me being a terrible mum. If I'd known a bit more about babies, surely I'd have been capable of working out a successful sleep routine prior to his first birthday? Or if I'd ever babysat, I'd have probably already learnt that while a self feeding toddler was a necessary evil, it didn't have to be one that played out next to my Florence Broadhurst wallpaper.

But what I've come to realise since having my second child, and from the wonderful mothers I've met since having my first (as our conversations have gotten more and more honest and less and less polite over the years we've know each other and witnessed one another's breakdowns), it's that even if you have a lot of experience with children prior to parenthood, it doesn't really make that much difference. Becoming a mum, or a dad, is still a huge bloody shock.

When I spoke to some of the mum's I know about their expectations and the realities of parenthood, even though unlike me some of them had spent a fair bit of time with babies beforehand, I discovered that the whole thing had been just as surprising and negotiating it just as experimental for them, as it had been for me.

For one, who waited many years and underwent many rounds of IVF to conceive, it was surprising that she would indeed find the sound of a crying baby from the other room at 3am grating. Annoying even. And on one particularly long and colicky night, that she'd call the child she spent years imagining, a dickhead to his face.

For another, after years as an Early Childhood Teacher, that she'd regularly find herself by 11am thinking 'what the fuck can we do for the rest of the day?' in a mild state of exhausted panic.

My favourite story though is the mum who as an aunt had often cared for and put a toddler niece in 'time out'. During which she calmly explained the wrong doing and gave said toddler space to reflect on their actions...only to end up at a parenting workshop hearing about utilising this very technique before she remembered that it existed and she could actually employ it with her own child.

Having spoken to them, it seems, that even if you know more about kids in general - like how many muslins you might require and which way the sticky bits of the nappy should go - you still actually know nothing at all about being a parent to your particular child (and then subsequent children who have the audacity to not be carbon copies of the first). And that's pretty off-balancing.

While Abe shocked the life out of me, I was kind of ready for it. Kind of. I was under no illusions about how I'd like to parent or how often my child might feed based on books or other people's babies because I'd had exactly no interaction with other people's babies and I'd certainly not read any books about what to do prior to his arrival. Manly because I was already a bit freaked out about it all and trying to ignore the whole 'being up the duff thing' in the first place...

Imagine though, if I'd thought I had some idea of what to expect? If I had calmed a crying child and truly believed I'd be able to do so for my own no issues. Holy fuck, would I have been in for an even more massive surprise.

When you birth a child, everything changes. Not just your fanny and your Saturday night preferences. All the good ideas you might have had about crying it out, controlled crying, making the baby fit in with your schedule, how to remain calm in the face of (let's be honest) utter fucking moronic behaviour over and over again, why you wont sniff a kid's arse to see if they've shat in their nappy... that stuff is not foremost in your mind. Nothing is. Your mind is a mushy, vapid space than knows only how to boil a kettle and say 'for fucks sake' a lot. I don't know how long this state typically lasts for. I'm three and a half long years in and still there.

The only advice I can give you, if you don't have a kid yet and are going into this? Give up coffee now. You're about to need its power a lot more, and so you'll want to be coming to that caffeine hit clean if you can.

Other than that, I've got nothing. Because it's not what you expect; whatever you expect. It's not what you plan; whatever you plan. It's not what you imagine; whatever you imagine.

From my (granted not very extensive or scientific and thus very loosely termed) 'research', it seems like not having a clue when it comes to parenting, or the brain capacity to figure it out for the first six months (years?) or so is to be expected.

So, just sit back, snuggle and enjoy the coffee on arrival.

#Newborn #Family #Parenthood #Change