Recently, several of my close, child-less friends have learned they are having kids. My first thought was, “you morons”. But my second thought was “I should say something actually helpful.” So as a slight departure from my usual self indulgent blog posts describing all the first world problems within my life, I’ve decided to give my friends the greatest gift of all. The gift of unsolicited advice. Yes, I know that is also incredibly self indulgent, but I am kind of a selfish shit so there you go.
I didn’t want this to be me vomiting up the standard bullshit advice that every soon to be parent hears. I also didn’t want this to be “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” but with more swearing and less gross descriptions of stuff.
What I would have wanted (what I did want) in this situation was some reassurance. Reassurance that my formerly awesome life, while certainly different, could continue to be awesome (or at least not too shitty) after a kid. So…
Here is my Top 8 list (cause nobody makes a top 8 list) of unexpected benefits of being a parent.
1. You have an infallible excuse for getting out of any work and/or social obligation. “Oh, I would love to come to your wedding in Iowa, drive you to the airport, attend your mocktail party [insert any horrible task here]. The great thing is you can use it forever and there are endless combinations. Kid is sick. Kid has a play. Kid is sick in a play. It’s perfect and no one questions it, even if they know you are full of shit.
2. Kids make you a better human. I want to set a good example for them so I actually try to behave like a caring, responsible adult. Weird right? There is real food in the refrigerator, I don’t live in filth and I give a shit about the environment now. I still don’t like most other people, but I hide it much better. “You are just faking it” you say??? Kind of, but so is everyone else, right? Do you think any “grown up” actually knows that they are doing? No. They don’t. Your buddy from college who threw up on a dog and is now a VP at Goldman Sachs? Your friend from high school who once broke his arm playing Wii but is now a director at a PR firm?? They didn’t just get more responsible they realized they needed to fake it.
3. Kids make you worry less about dumb stuff. Because you spend so much time worrying about the kid, you devote approximately 0% of your energy to worrying about dumb shit (work, other people’s opinions, etc.). It’s wonderful.
4. Kids make you smarter. Literally. When the kid gets old enough to talk he/she will ask you a million questions. And you will realize how little you actually understand almost everything. I have no idea how anything works. Daughter 1 asks me, Dad, how does an airplane fly? No fucking idea. But I looked it up so I could try (very simply) to explain it. I couldn’t, but I tried. As a fun aside see if you can explain how anything electrical actually works. Television was invented nearly 100 years ago and yet I could not come close to explaining how it works in a credible way. “There are waves of sound and light that fly through the air, are collected by this flat screened box, and transformed into moving, talking images.” What?!?!?! That sounds like total bullshit. Another example courtesy of Wikipedia, did you know that cars are basically powered by a continuous series of tiny explosions. Maybe you knew that. Maybe I am mechanically retarded and everyone else knows this stuff, but it blew my mind.
5. Kids make you want to spend your free time more wisely. Because you are responsible for their childhood/their memories you will try to come up with something interesting to do with your free moments. After all, you don’t want their childhood to be entirely made up of memories of watching you watching sports. Pre-kids I used spend my Saturdays drinking beer and seeing how long I could go without getting up to pee (pretty long time for the record). Also fun, but maybe a little less rewarding in the long run.
6. They let you act like a kid again. Squirt guns, poop jokes, laughing at people who fall down…it’s all back on. I made a couch fort last weekend. It was fucking awesome. As a grown up, you don’t do shit like that. Now you can.
7. It is amazing to show them the world and watch how they react. Museums with kids are great or even just walking in the woods. Life is like a drug and after a while you build up a tolerance, so it’s harder for something to really be impressive after about age 30. But a kid will be impressed by a large pile of dog shit, literally. The kids will say things like, “Whoa Daddy, look at that giant pile of poop. It’s HUGE.”. It’s like resetting your own bar for being impressed. It’s great. Note : The aforementioned pile of poop is often not that large.
8. They are fucking hilarious. We were at a restaurant a few weeks ago and a little girl (probably about 3) came over to say hi to my kids. She trots over with her mom in tow. Mom kneels down to kid level, introduces her daughter (Madison? Kennedy?Filmore? It was a president’s name, not Bush, but not sure which one) and asks the girls their names. Daughter 1 smiles a huge smile and proudly answers. Daughter 2, pauses a moment, smirks (who would have thought a 3 year old could smirk) and says “Mrs. Poop”. The mom, confused says, “excuse me.” My Wife hurriedly rushes to correct her. But not before Daughter 2, who presumably assumes the woman didn’t understand her, stares right at this woman and says very slowly in a voice dripping with annoyance, MRS. POOOOOP. It was awesome
Unspirational Tales 