michael-dean-k/

After being a father for six months, here’s a predictable observation: days feel similar. I bring my daughter out, of course, to parks and pools, so we’re not entirely homebound. But I can’t, for example, spontaneously take a train to Manhattan the night of July 3rd to see the ball drop before the semiquincentennial—it’s not that I particularly want to do that, it’s just that every impulse to “get out” is filtered through, an is-it-worth-doing-this-with-a-stroller-and-supplies filter, or an is-this-even-possible filter, or a would-this-be-inconvenient-to-my-wife filter. There is a common groove: work bright and early, baby stuff all day, and then resetting, relaxing, and recalibrating at night.

So, at least for now, there is notable change in “experience.” Not a change in quality, but in type; it’s a lapse in variety of experience, which personally doesn’t bother me. Your mental fortitude for early parenting probably bears some resemblance to how you fared during the pandemic. There is no virus, but a similar warping in the nature of days.

But, the pearl and point of having kids is the experience of raising a child; it lacks the variety that a single nomad in Bali might have, but it is a singular channel of experience with extreme depth, meaning, and change. Once you figure out how to make your kid laugh, and how to intuitively communicate without language, and where they are ticklish, and how to guide their attention to get them to focus on books—you discover the tremendous variety within the thing that matters most.

As a writer though, it seems like I prevent myself from writing about parenting. I tend to mention it loosely, without my daughter’s name and without much detail. I always find myself not thinking linguistically in moments with my kid. Maybe I should? I just usually forget. There feels like so much nuance packed in a single event and glance, that to stop and write it both severs me from the potency of it, and sever me from them.

So, while I find myself in recent months with few “stories” I’d happily share an essay around, I do find myself reading more than I ever have in my life. Considering she sleeps a lot, on me, it’s just a space I have. I imagine when she starts walking, or gets older, this might evaporate, but for now I’m reading 1,000+ pages per month. I feel less anxious about the lapse of new experiences, knowing that in a few years it all comes back, and I’ll come back with a new head, a new constellation of nodes to bring to the variety of experiences, along with a little person who will force me to see everything anew.