New dad confessions

by Tony Chen

Here I am sitting at Trident bookstore on Newbury Street in Boston on free wi-fi. It's only been one night away so far, and I'm already definitely missing the family. Man, am I whipped or what? Or maybe that's a good thing. Last night's little phone call with Meme repeating mommy's "baba fa gee" ("dad airplane" in chinese) was priceless. Well, as such, I'm trying to suck the marrow out of this time away.

Sometimes my life as a new dad feels like a constant battle between sleep deprivation/physical tiredness and really being in the moment. My body is weak and broken and beat up, but my desire to be fully emotionally/physical/mentally present with my family tries to keep up. There are definitely days when I'm just too tired to engage Meme how I'd want to - instead of sitting down and playing blocks with him, I'll just be sprawled out on the floor half-asleep next to him. Other days, I'll get that "second wind" after work and somehow find the energy to juggle racketballs and chase after loose balls until we're both on the floor wrestling and laughing. Back and forth, back and forth, these two forces go.

Which is why I'm thankful for times like this. What a feeling to turn off the part of my brain that is constantly on red alert, assessing bad smells, bad behaviors, and bad safety situations (aside: my wife told me that two nights ago at 2am when Meme walked into our bedroom whimpering a little, I whipped my glasses on and got on all fours, screaming, "what's wrong? what's going on? what happened?" I, for one, do not remember this incident at all. Chalk it up to my tiger instincts) With that part of my brain diverted selfishly to me again, I can finally take a deep breath, take a step back, and just process the last few months of non-stop craziness.

In no particular order, here are a few things I'm thinking today:

1. I love being a dad. Being away from the family just made me realize how much I totally enjoy the precious few moments I have with them every day. Maybe I take this for granted, but I'm thankful that I have a job that allows me to see my family every day.

2. I've been thinking a lot about how my parents influences my parenting approach. Nothing like being a parent to realize what my parents had to put up with. And in my humble opinion, my parents got a lot right. But I think we all have some sort of "I love my parents, but I'm going to parent differently when I have my kids" idea. Little and big annoyances that I experienced being parented motivates me to do it differently. But I also wonder if I'm "overcompensating". For example, I think my parents were pretty good at keeping me disciplined and hard-working. They "guided" me down a certain path that they thought made sense for me, but in many ways, that path minimized the creative part of me, and it's taken me 10+ adult years now to embrace that part of me. I'm not saying my path was wrong nor do I fault my parents - in fact, I'm only starting to see the wisdom in it. But the feeling of not having a creative outlet had been nagging me for a long time. So, maybe I value creativity and artistic expression "too much?" Is it selfish to parent my child the way I wish I was parented? Maybe the point is the parent in a way that brings out the best our kids (and maybe creativity is irrelevant to them!).

3. I'm pretty good at rationalizing my parenting decisions. Yes, I do want what's best for my tot, and yes I'm willing to go to extraordinary lengths to make that happen for him. But as I sit here, I can't say for sure that I'm not driven by my own fears, insecurities, and guilt. I think we all probably know someone who's "overparenting" because it's the only part of their lives that they CAN control, or that being a parent has become a little too much a part of their core identity. Do we involve our kids in too many activities because there's a "keeping up with the Jones's" mentality? Does having a $25 stroller somehow reflect my commitment to the best? Why is it so easy to spot this in other parents, and yet we're blind to it ourselves? (so, if anyone sees this is us, let us know!) More on this one later - I think there's more to unpack here.

Well, the battery on my laptop is about to die. My bubble tea is now just bubbles. Signing off now, but would love to hear your thoughts on what drives our parenting and how to survive 2 more nights away from the fam.