Father to Son: On Being a Dad

I just checked my last blog entry and found I posted it in…January?  Really?

How time flies.  I suppose all my loyal and constant blog readers (Hi, Mom!) are wondering what I’ve been up to.  Well, say hello to my little friend.

Little Man Reed, just chillin'.

There’s a moment, or even several moments, in the process of having a child, when you feel like you are changed forever.  Be it when you look at the pregnancy test, and realize what it is saying.  Or when you go to the hospital for the first time.  When you sit in the darkened ultrasound room and see the tiny beating heart; you feel changed.  Maybe you are, and maybe you aren’t, but that’s how it feels.  And the second time changes you no less because you’ve done it before; I became a different person at that moment.  I was a Dad.  Again.

And this time, we learned, we were having a boy.

My wife tried, in vain, to get me to express a preference before we found out.  Would I rather have a boy?  Someone to carry on the Reed name?  Another girl?  Because the first one is pretty fantastic!  I had no preference.  Nature doesn’t really care what I want, so what did it matter?  The tiny beating heart was all I needed to see.

But seeing as we were blessed with a son, I started thinking, quite naturally, about what I would try to teach him, especially about things that matter.  And I started to think that someday, he might have a family of his own.  Someday, he might have kids of his own.  I started to think about what I knew about being a dad going into all this, and I started to think what I, through words, but mostly through example, might teach him about being a good husband, and a good father.  About being a Dad.

And what I came up with, scientifically tested, and boiled down to its most basic component, was this:

If you want to be a good dad, spend more time with your kids.  Not just because it’s fun and exciting and the most rewarding thing you’ll ever do in your life.  But also because it makes you a better person.

I sometimes think back on all my daughter has accomplished in the past 6 years: she learned to roll over, sit up, walk, run, jump, talk, eat using utensils (sometimes), tell jokes, be sarcastic, learned the names of all the planets, can explain that Pluto used to be a planet and now it isn’t, and can even express why she disagrees with that decision.

What have I managed to accomplish in the same time period?

I learned how to change diapers, and make beer.  Not bad, but hardly on the same level of accomplishments.

Being a dad has been, in short, amazing.

It has also been frustrating at times, albeit it more and more rarely with each passing year.  But I wonder, will the frustrations start again with our new baby?  Will I once again run up against gender stereotypes that typify mothers as having an inherent “mothering instinct,” while dads just bumble along and try not to kill anyone? 

Almost certainly.

This is a pretty typical understanding of how “fatherhood” works.  “A mother knows,” whereas a dad shouldn’t be left alone with a baby for too long.  He might not know what to do if something goes wrong.

Those who express this stereotype might have some ammunition to back it up, and this seems to be borne out within my own upbringing.  My father was not well known for changing diapers (in much the same way that fish are not well known for flying airplanes), so much as he was known for taking me up in bucket trucks, 40 or so feet above the ground.  And while I thought that was pretty awesome at the time, parenting should not be objectively judged by what some little kid thinks is awesome.

So, mothers know best.  I guess, deep inside, we already knew that.  And science has backed this up.

Researchers using functional MRIs have documented neural changes in the brains of mothers.  Other studies have found changes in certain hormone levels during pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding contribute to a chemically-identifiable bonding between mother and infant.  At a biological level, science has been telling us, mothers have an instinct that fathers do not.  With fathers, parenting must be learned (and, by extension, taught, somehow, usually by the mother).

SCIENCE!!

But not so fast!  A more recent study took the shocking step of looking for similar patterns in fathers.  (Shocking!)  And not just any old “dad” off the street, but rather, the study looked at hormone levels and MRI imaging in fathers who took an active role in parenting and caring for an infant.  It even looked at same-sex couples (where, presumably, there was no one immediately present to “teach” this whole parenting thing, like we guys are supposed to need).

The results were clear and, well, shocking!  Parenting itself rewires the human brain.  Certain hormone levels were altered in the fathers in the study, while MRIs also found neural pathways in their brains were altered, all in patterns similar to the changes that have been found in mothers during pregnancy and childbirth. 

So, guys, you’re good!  Every baffled look, every clearly irresponsible decision (“What does he need a car seat for?  I’m not going to get in an accident!”), is now totally backed up by science as just part of your infallible paternal instinct!  My father knew exactly what he was doing!  He was helping me conquer my fear of heights!  By giving me one!

Not so fast.  Go back and read my description of the research study again.  They found these results in fathers who took an ACTIVE role in parenting.  In other words, this isn’t something you get just for being there, like a frequent flyer card.  This is something that develops in you through constant exposure, immersion, in the reality of parenting.

Now, I try not to make many Mad Men references, mostly because when other people do, I have no idea what they’re talking about, but picture this, the Old Normal:

Picture the successful professional, or the aspiring professional, or the hardworking man working his fingers to the bone to put food on the table.  His wife is at home, taking care of the kids, changing diapers, kissing boo-boos, cleaning the house, cooking breakfast, lunch, dinner, tucking the kids into bed.  And the kids, what do they see?  Mom, taking care of them, and Dad, coming home usually right around dinner time, some nights not until after bed time.  He would read the evening paper, a glass of bourbon in his hand if he happened to be Don Draper (he drinks, right?  Like I said, I never watched it), or munching on a handful of peanuts if he was my own father.  The kids would kiss him goodnight, and off to bed.  And the weekend would come, and Dad would take them on some grand, and sometimes vaguely dangerous, adventures.  Or, you know, just mowing the lawn:

"Don't worry, Dad.  I got this."

 

When it came to parenting, Mom was the Parent, Dad was the Provider.  Inside their brains, entirely different things are happening, and the one cannot even begin to comprehend the other.

Flash-forward to the New Normal (or what we’re slowly building toward making normal):  Mom and Dad change diapers, cook meals, clean the house (my wife might argue with me about this one, but I stand by my work), cook, kiss boo-boos.  And inside the brains, similar neural pathways are at work, because these very activities have the ability to alter the chemistry and functionality of our brains.  Science is showing us more and more that brains are not permanently wired one way or the other, but can change.  And that we can actually choose how that rewiring will occur.  We can choose to be active dads, or absent dads, and our brains will follow suit, seemingly reinforcing that decision as just being who we are.  But really, the decision is ours.  It always has been.

This is what I want to pass on to my son.  That his brain will be formed and reformed throughout his life, and he gets to choose, by his own active participation, how the rewiring will occur.  And the same goes for all of us.  

So dads, be a good father.  It will, literally, make you a better person.  A dad.