When you’re an expectant father, you can’t have a single conversation with anyone about your soon-to-be-born child without hearing things like “it’ll be a big change” or “get plenty of sleep while you still can!”. Even when you’re a first-timer, you can easily recognise these types of trite nuggets of nothingness for just what they are.
But what really winds me up about hearing them now, spouted to other bright-eyed, bushy-tailed dads-to-be, is how they completely trivialise the earth-shatteringly massive change that’s coming for that poor bloke. Obviously, these types of phrases either come from people who don’t have kids, or from grandparents who’ve forgotten what it’s like to be a young parent at all.
Studies and surveys such as this one highlight just how mentally jarring actually becoming a dad is for a lot of men. Seven out of ten respondents said their stress levels increased in the first year of being a first-time dad. Nearly a quarter said they’d felt isolated during that time, and over half developed at least one new negative health behaviour.
In this Guardian article from last year, two dads put it in their own words as to the mental impact becoming a father had on them.
Tom Spencer said:
“There were struggles around breastfeeding. It was really hot that summer. The lack of sleep. Maybe something about the permanence of being a parent? I just felt sad a lot. I remember my partner and me commenting on a day that neither of us cried. I remember putting her in a sling for the first time and being terrified that she had stopped breathing and I’d killed her.”
Tom Huddleston added:
“Firstly there was just the shock of responsibility, something I’ve successfully steered clear of for most of my life. Secondly, it was just really hard – no one tells you that, or if they do, you don’t listen. But as you know, it’s just utterly relentless, and the emotional toll is huge. You think – well, this is it now, for 18 years, and however much friends tell you it gets easier, you again don’t listen.”
Both of those quotes will be so familiar to dads all over the world, but the parts I’ve bolded in particular really resonated with me from my own personal experience of first-time fatherhood.
When you’re in-waiting - or at least when I was in-waiting - fatherhood was just an idealised abstract notion. Yeah, it’ll be great! We’ll watch all the cool films I did when I was young, we’ll go to Disney World, I’ll take them out for pizza. It’ll be awesome! I was very content dipping my toe into these little imagined futures for a bit, then returning happily to reality once again.
Then, when that baby was in my hands for the first time, it was like someone pushed me right in - head first and blindfolded. And this time I was never, ever leaving. I was going to be a father to this child forever.
Like those bolded excerpts above, that might seem obvious to a casual observer looking in. I can imagine people saying things like “no one said it’d be easy,” or “you knew what you were getting into!” (more completely fucking useless conjecture that actually does get said to dads. Seriously, who let these people off their leads?)
But the trouble with that second common saying in particular is that we, as first-time fathers, often DO NOT know what we are getting into. We know we’re soon going to be the father to a child, and that’s about it. And it hits you like a eighteen-wheeler carrying a tonne of shit-filled sacks.
I know this, because it happened to me. And I remember the exact point it happened.
At first, it was great. That first sixteen hours or so, I was on cloud nine. I cut her cord, I had skin-to-skin cuddles with her in my big comfy chair at the side of the recovery bed, I introduced her to my parents, and put her in her first clothes. Being a dad was fucking awesome.
The last thing I remember from this rose-tinted vision of fatherhood was seeing our angelic little baby asleep in the cot and my wife getting some well-earned rest. I sat back with a podcast in my aforementioned big comfy chair and slipped into the last careless sleep I’ve ever had.
4:32am. The time as it appeared on my phone is still etched into my memory. I’m awoken by someone shaking my shoulder.
“The baby’s awake,” my wife said. “I think she’s pooed.”
I stumbled out of my chair and took two steps before I tripped over the tube from my wife’s catheter bag that she needed because of the epidural. A great tidal wave of piss spilt all over my feet and the floor.
I soldiered forward, shaking the piss off. I made it to the cot, where my little baby daughter was woken from her heavenly sleep, and was singing the song of her people - wailing incoherently at the top of her little fucking lungs.
I unbuttoned her baby-grow, unfastened the nappy I had so proudly put on her earlier, and then I saw it. It was the BBS - the Big Black Shit. If you’re not a parent yet, be prepared for this. The first poo they do is entirely black, sticky like tar, and goes EVERYWHERE.
Obviously I didn’t know this, so when I’d peeled away the baby-grow, I’d already plunged my fingers right into the maelstrom.
I was panicking - I pawed at the mass of black slurry with baby wipes, but nothing cleaned it up. It just kept coming, and coming, and coming. Eventually, I just balled up the nappy in it’s entirety and set it aside, fumbling the rest of my way through my first middle-of-the-night nappy change.
A vague recollection of a thought flashed in my mind. The midwife has said something important about baby’s first poo. I couldn’t remember what it was, so in my fragile state I scooped up the dripping soiled nappy and squelched into the hallway and up to the nurses’ station.
“Our baby’s done her first poo,” I said pathetically. In hindsight, I probably looked like I wanted them to change the nappy for me because I was so clueless. I had at least done the change myself, but I was indeed clueless. At least the midwives probably got a good laugh that night.
It was when I sat down after baby was settled again, the shit was scooped away and the floor was mopped, that I realised my old life was over. And I cried.
The first few days were a total haze. I remember having to go out in the middle of the afternoon for something from the local shop and staggering around in a sleep-deprived stupor, observing the regular people going about their regular lives, and feeling such resentment, such jealousy. They had their regular, normal lives to live. Where had mine gone?
I tried to cling on to what once was. I played video games whenever the baby was asleep when I should have been sleeping as well. When that wasn’t enough, I tried to sneak gaming sessions in whilst the baby was feeding. Eventually my wife called me out on it - and rightly so. I felt guilty that I was trying to escape mentally from just being with my wife and baby.
But I was struggling. I’d come to realise that when people say fatherhood changes your life, that’s not the whole story. In that moment, it felt like becoming a dad had ended my old life. I know that sounds dramatic, but I genuinely felt like I was in mourning - the permanency of becoming a dad was weighing very heavily on me, and I didn’t know who I was anymore.
I don’t really know what I’d say to a new dad about how to get through a similar situation, other than it does get better over time. The free time that had been squeezed so much by fatherhood actually became more precious, meaningful, and as a result more fulfilling. Fatherhood focused my life and free time - yes, there’s a lot of trials and tribulations along the way, but I found that having less time meant I entertained less of life’s bullshit.
It’s a massive headfuck becoming a dad for the first time, no doubt. I didn’t have post-partum depression or anything like that, but just because you’re not diagnosed or need professional help over a long period of time, doesn’t mean that it can’t completely knock you for six.
Obviously though, this kind of thing doesn’t get talked about often enough between dads. At the very least, we’re too tired to focus any meaningful attention on our own state of minds. But even so, those fathers who have these kinds of conversations are still in the minority.
Most people reading this will probably be dads already, so maybe knowing that you weren’t the only one to have these kinds of feelings will help somewhat in processing it. But what would be amazing is if you do know someone whose soon to become a dad for the first time, if you’d do something a bit different for them.
Give them a break from the usual horseshit catchphrases they hear day in, day out from people who aren’t quite so keen to lend their “advice” once things actually get hard. Let them know what you felt, how you dealt with it - even share this issue with them if you think it’ll help.
And if you are an expectant dad reading this - yes, they may be in the minority, but there are other dads out there who will listen to you if things get tough in those first couple of months. You aren’t and won’t be alone.
And if you find that you’re longing for your old self, then it’s fine to feel that way. Don’t feel guilty, but try not to fret either. Something tells me that you’ll love the new you so much more.
How about you?
Did you struggle with your sense of self after you had your first child? How did you get through that tough period? I believe every dad has some piece of insight that can change someone’s entire outlook when they’re going through difficult times and difficult emotions, so I’d love to hear from you. Who know who you might be helping by sharing your story.
Three (and a bit) things I've read this week
Getting to know Substack a bit better over the past couple of weeks has opened me up to so many interesting and insightful publications - some I actually already followed, and some I've recently discovered. Here’s three articles that I really loved this week:
The Secret of Here from - I just loved how this illustrated short story encapsulates the importance of the present moment. All too often as parents we’re thinking of the next logistical hurdle in our day-to-day childcare routine. Sometimes it’s unavoidable, but other times we can afford to stop and just be present in the moment we’re in right there and then.
When left to my own devices from - I too am guilty of, after a day of chasing a three-year-old around and a difficult bedtime routine, wanting nothing more than to zonk out on the sofa and scroll through my phone, in some sort of protest against the fact that free time is so scarce nowadays. If you’re the same, take a look.
Ponytails by - This quick read sums up one of the tasks that befuddles me the most about being a girl dad - tying their hair in ponytails. To some, it might just be easier to think “ah, my wife will sort that out.” But it fills me with enough pride to get me through the day seeing my daughter toddle off to nursery with a ponytail that I learned to tie…even if it’s not symmetrical.
I also subscribe to The Sample, which is a site that pulls together loads of different newsletters on a range of subjects, and fires one out to you every morning for free. Check it out.
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Previously on Some Other Dad
Last week’s issue was all about our bodies, how they’re breaking down under the strain of fatherhood and how there’s pressure on dads to look a certain way after becoming parents, as well as mums. Plus, if you like anecdotes about a grown man bum-shuffling in a supermarket, then you’re really in luck (again, no kink-shaming).
