An Open Letter to New Fathers

by Jesse Warden

This letter originally came about when a parents list-serve that Brandy is on requested some advice/help for a new father. Brandy asked her husband if he wanted to respond. What follows is the e-mail he wrote in reply for her to share with the list-serve. The letter had such a wonderful reply we thought we would share it with you as well.

Original e-mail (excerpt):

"I know of a father who is having a tough time in his relatively new role (5 months). He is normally great with older children, the ones that can talk ;-) But he’s become very frustrated when he realized his skills didn’t translate to his own first baby. He can’t interpret or soothe her cries very well and takes it personally. His patience wears thin quickly and he just has to put her down and walk away. He’s confessed that he’s very disturbed by his own dark feelings and emotions during those times and has started making excuses to spend less and less alone time with her and leave with either mommy, grandma or daycare more. He’s very much a loving doting daddy, but this has perhaps touched a nerve with his self-esteem and insecurities as a father and provider. Does anyone have any resources that could help?"

As a guy, it sucks that I can't just use my instinctual resources to fix my kid such as strength, guy assertiveness, and engineering know-how.

Using strength, I used to be able to get my kid, when she was 2 - 4 months old, to stop crying by lifting her up over my head, and down slowly. That no longer works. If she's in a playful mood, I can jump while holding her, and she finds that fun. If she's upset, it doesn't work. If she's in a good mood, I can throw things at myself, and fake getting tackled by the dog, and she laughs hysterically. If she's in a bad mood, it doesn't work. The faster and more abrupt I change her diaper, the more unsettled she becomes. The quicker and more forceful I get her into the bath, the less she wants to take one. In short, my strength was only useful the first 4 months of her life when I could wear her and walk circles around the living room for hours to put her to sleep or calm her down for the night. Now it's useless.

My guy assertiveness (read: scary aggression) doesn't work either. The only thing being a jerk seems to work wonders for is preventing bad behavior (standing on couch), ignoring her temper tantrums while I change her, and preventing her from hurting the dog. She even cries less when I change her vs. my wife because my kid recognizes I don't give a flip about her tantrums. While it's nice to have found some things I'm good at, they only work on the negatives, i.e. stopping bad behavior and being "mean". Being mean has never worked making my kid happy, soothed, nor resulted in anything positive... except just stopping the negatives.

My engineering know-how is the only thing that makes me really feel like I'm contributing. While I'm pretty good now at changing diapers, cleaning up puke, and fixing/installing/assembling kid toys, it's the latter and other tasks that really help make the difference to my wife. Because of this, I've learned I can depend on my wife, and that's huge. When I turn a musical toy on for instance, sometimes my kid is happy, and other times not; it's a crap shoot. However, as she's aged, she enjoys when they do work. My wife also likes when the toys work because she wants to be able to sing songs with my kid with the musical toys for example, and she can't do that unless they have full batteries, are put together, and are in some particular location. Basically, anything my wife needs, I end up doing (open the diapers box, open the Tylenol bottle, find her dang paci, it's missing, please fetch me some pajamas, can you make her some food, please put her clothes in the dryer, blah blah blah). I figure, if I can't always make my kid happy, but my wife can, then empowering my wife to ensure she's got everything she needs is the best I can do.

Again, none of the above stops my kid from crying, helps me recognize when my kid is hungry vs. cold, or makes me feel empowered being a good father. I feel like I've been relegated to a beefcake butler who is the fun governor of the household. It is extremely frustrating sometimes, I just want to lift my house up from the foundations like The Hulk, and launch the thing into space. Obviously, I don't want to hurt my wife, kid, and dog (except the cat, I wouldn't miss it), but as a guy, if we can't talk it into our way of thinking, smash it, or fix it with our hands... we feel useless and that's very frustrating. The one thing you should hope you have is a) the ability to recognize when you're emotionally done and b) having your "SO" there to back you up. That's one of the points of marriage; you're wife's got your back!

...with that said, in talking with others, apparently I'm doing the right thing. While you should always be a team with your SO, and compensate for their weaknesses, that usually involves typical guy traits:

- being mean and setting boundaries firmly
- not panicking like chicks do ("ZOMG, she's crying, must freak out and find bottle!!!", in which the kid can read the anxiety and thus starts crying more)
- putting the kid to bed even if they don't want to (post 6 months, such as Ferber, or later just "yeah yeah, blah blah cry cry... go to bed" *closes door*)
- putting toys together, moving heavy crud, installing car seats, strapping kids into the car
- ensuring no one messes with your wife and kid, nor runs them over in the parking lot, etc.

You can't fix kids. You can't bang them into non-crying mode. And the young ones have a very limited vocabulary of slightly modified pitches of crying. The only real crafting you can do is molding their impression of you. That involves respect, love, and support of your SO. You do those things, you're being a good father. There is nothing wrong with high expectations of yourself. That said, young kids can be very hard to read since every kid is different, so all advice you're given is suspect, and therefore, so are your reflections upon yourself. Worse, kids are tiring and it's hard to be reasonable when you're patience is wearing thin because of lack of sleep, no real assuredness that your techniques are working with such limited reciprocation from your child's limited vocabulary and behaviors, as well as all of the usual life pressures that are still there (work, taxes, wife's needs, etc). If your kid falls asleep in your arms, or smiles when they see you, or talks (gibberish) to you, or wants to be held by you, or lets you feed them... you're clearly doing something right. Hang in there! Being a parent isn't easy.

If none of the above makes you feel any better, then from one guy to another: Stop being a $%@!, listen to your wife, let your kid know you love them, and keep trying.