Pre-Parenting Learning

The Conversation Continues

“My daughter is turning into a complete germaphobe, and I think she’s getting it from me”. After dinner, I got to talking with a distant relative who shared some of her parenting challenges. As a self-proclaimed germaphobe, and a mother of a 4-year-old, she fears how her disgust of most public toilets is trickling down to her daughter.

It seems that in an attempt to imitate the mom, the daughter had a small ‘accident’ at her kindergarten after trying and trying to hold it, only because she didn’t feel like the kindergarten bathrooms were clean enough. I had so many questions, but also a personal story I wanted to share with her.

Let me preface by stating that I found the conversation fascinating. It sounded like such an interesting challenge to tackle. Even with the mom fully acknowledging her issues with germs, it was still almost impossible to prevent the daughter from adopting the same tendencies.

As a soon to be father, I’ve been increasingly interested in learning about parenting. But still, similar to years of prior experience, most times I try to discuss parenting with those who are already parents, I encounter the response I know all too well: oh, you just wait until you have kids. And then we’ll talk!”

I’ve previously shared my take on what I called ‘the taboo of pre-parenting learning’. There, I stated that “I believe that through observation and conversation we can improve the quality of our own parenting skills even before having kids of our own.”

Since writing these words (and also because of writing them), I’ve been getting into more and more such conversations. And from those, I wanted to share a few additional thoughts. Let’s start with the #1 thing parents tell me when they learn I’m about to become a father: “Forget Everything You Know”.

Everything is going to change, or will it? 

Life altering events, such as becoming a parent, alter your life situation, but you’re still who you are. Your fears, doubts, and insecurities, all join you for the ride as you get to face this new challenge. Sure, some parents use their child as a tool to become better people as they examine what type of parents they want to be and along the way realize what type of person they want to be.

But all this change, for better or worse, doesn’t happen on its own, and is not independent from our previous identities.

In my experience, neurotic people tend to be at least somewhat neurotic parents as well. The same goes for compassionate, curious, creative, strict, aloof, or other various adjectives. In case someone has forgotten, parents are just people (don’t worry, we won’t tell the kids).

Why would people who are about to undergo a significant change want to avoid discussing it with others? Bringing up the subject of parenting, and being told “just you wait”, can often make a conversation hit a dead-end.

I interpret such reactions either as the parent having no clue about what they're doing and using "just you wait" as a defense mechanism, or as the parent being too tired and overwhelmed to engage in a discussion. In most cases, it’s the former. And we shouldn’t act surprised.

No Real Experts Involved

Accepted practice shows us that becoming a parent brings with it the greatest leap in wisdom we could ever imagine. Throughout several decades of our lives, society tells us not to worry about parenting, and that it’ll be better for us to keep quiet on the subject as we have zero chance of having any real insight before having a kid.

Then suddenly, in a single day, we cross a threshold where we manage to acquire so much parenting expertise that, all at once, we begin to rely less on the guidance of others, particularly those who were similar to us only the day before.

If there’s one thing I believe everyone can agree upon is that when it comes to parenting the number of variables in effect is massive. Yet so many people are overconfident, giving countless advice, while completely discounting the endless variance in parents’ personalities and preference, children’s character, or even the financial, social, or geographical setting.

It seems to me that even after raising a kid (or even three) it’s still almost impossible to claim parenting expertise. There are just too many variables. Which is exactly why we should all be vocal about our thoughts and experiences. Until I’m face to face with proven expertise I’ll continue to consider everyone, myself included, a beginner. And don’t get me wrong, I’d love nothing more than to meet someone with a track record of raising one to two dozen kids over different time periods who can claim a set of principals they have followed consistently throughout. Wouldn’t you want to hear their advice?

But as long as no experts are around, the best any of us could do is maintain a beginner’s mindset and keep an open mind. Funny enough, what I enjoy most is listening to parents fiercely lecturing me on how I should prepare myself. If anything, those lectures often help me understand my own beliefs and preferences (which are most often quite different from what I hear).

Just last week, a father of two felt responsible enough to emotionally prepare me for the first 6 months of fatherhood, 6 months in which (according to him) I’m unlikely to feel anything towards my newborn. It appears that for the first half year it’s only the mother that feels an emotional connection. At some point in the conversation came some ‘scientific’ explanations relating to hormones, but I felt like I got the gist of it.

What baffled me wasn’t the account of his experience, but the certainty in which he shared it, while not for a moment positioning it as ‘let me share with you what I went through’. Instead, the undertones were mostly ‘let me tell you what’s going to happen, so you can prepare yourself’. How could two kids (or two of anything) make someone so sure of themselves?  

Successfully sharing pre-parenting insight

Going back to the story I opened with, that of my relative and her 4-year-old daughter. As the mother was sharing her struggle with shielding her daughter from her personal ‘quirk’, I knew I had to share a personal story of my own.

I recently managed to fall and dislocate my shoulder during a skiing trip. In the seconds following the accident, I sat there, hurting. While dealing with the pain and shock of a 1^st-time dislocation, what I felt the most was anger. I was angry with myself for being careless. I couldn’t bring myself to show even a tiny bit of compassion towards myself.

About a week later, following an X-ray, MRI, and a referral to physical therapy, I started thinking what was it that got me so angry. It’s been some time since I last fell (which overall is probably a good thing). I went back to my childhood, remembering situations in which I fell and got hurt, as a kid. Immediately following an accident or a fall, I remember (among other things) my parents being somewhat angry. It wasn’t that they were angry with me, but rather I imagine they were angry with the situation. It was their helpless way of participating in my pain.

I don’t know whether this pattern of feeling anger after falling down truly originated with my parents, but it did open my eyes to how I’d like to (try to) react when my child falls. Most of all, I want to remain conscious of the choices I make and the effects they might have on my kids.

As I was sharing this story with my relative, I couldn’t help but notice her eyes lit up. She then shared with me that she, also, often gets a little angry right after her daughter falls as a result of a certain degree of carelessness. I didn’t have any actual piece of advice to share with her. But according to her, my story opened her eyes to how even subtle behaviors could potentially have noteworthy effects.

While still in my pre-parenting phase, I increasingly make it a point to discuss potential parenting insight. It feels like some of these conversations lead absolutely nowhere, and that’s fine. But occasionally, I’ll manage to learn something new. And while that learning might prove useful or completely useless, I still believe (as stated before) that there’s “no downside, as it is all just more ammunition for the experimentation that is parenting”.