Parenting: 1 Year On The Job

365 Days Where Nothing Was The Same

When you have your first child, it is momentous. A small human that was not in the world is suddenly very much so and is completely your responsibility. Their face is smooshed, they’re covered in fluids you can’t pronounce, and they’re just as uncertain about the next few hours as you are.

All of the sudden, you are a parent.

Candidly, I did not have some sort of religious experience upon the birth of Miles. “Being a parent changes you, man” some people say, the italics insinuating that the emergence of a son is similar to a weekend on ayahuasca in the mountains of Mexico. But all my changes have been normal. Or rather, they have been external. I now have a new person in my life that I love. Fantastic. That person doesn’t know how to talk, drive, or use the toilet. Not so fantastic.

My world has changed so I have changed.

And one of the biggest changes has been how I see this new world. What you know is what you notice, and moving from a non-parent to a parent has meant seeing things that previously blended into the background. Fortunately, as much as I loved the absurdity of single life, the world of parents is crazy on a major league level. One year in, here’s what I’ve noticed thus far.

Disclaimer: I did not read my last post on being a parent before writing this one. What follows could be incredibly contradictory and inconsistent. Isn’t that fun?

Your Child, The Therapist

Anything difficult you used to say your to your wife’s face, you can now say through your kid. It’s groundbreaking. It’s passive aggressive, but it’s so passive the aggressiveness can sneak through unnoticed.

• “Hey Miles, do you think daddy took out the garbage? Let’s see!”

• “Yeah Miles, I agree, Mom’s chicken is a bit undercooked.”

• “What’s that Miles? Daddy is driving a little fast?”

Better yet, it’s not even one way! You can also use your kid to respond, or even have a full conversation.

• “You know, Miles, I was going to take out the garbage but then I got busy changing your diaper!”

• “Miles, do you think Daddy knows he set the temperature on the oven too low? I don’t think so either!”

• “Hey Miles, are you cranky? Did you want to get home asap before having a meltdown? Oh so you want me to drive a bit faster?”

I see no negative repercussions for our children after enduring 18 years of this, and, in fact, we could see thousands of dollars saved in marriage counseling.

How are more people not talking about this?

How To Judge Other Parents In The Right Way

To be human is to judge. We can’t help it. The car someone drives, the music they listen to, they way they use emojis in their texts - we’re always judging whether we like it not.

Before being a parent, I absolutely judged other parents. Whether their kid was 3 months old or 16 years old, I saw parenting in action and I had a view on it. More often than not, that view was “I could do it better.”

Ha!

A year in, I’ve created a new rule: I can only judge parents in situations I’ve already experienced. This unfortunately significantly reduces my universe, but it also acknowledges that I can’t not judge, so I might as well judge what I know.

Have a six month old but also have a 3 year old? You get a free pass. All my knowledge on what I think works for your baby is heavily diluted by the fact that you also have a 3 year old terrorist stalking your house.

Have one kid that’s two years old? I so badly want to think that Miles is close enough in age that I can dispense nutritious nuggets of wisdom upon your family. But given three months ago Miles couldn’t even walk, how can I possibly know what he’ll be like when he’s 100% older than he is now?

I know, I know: even if someone is in the exact same situation I am, there are a million unknown external factors that are different. Of course there are, but until you find my judgement switch, I need some sort of outlet!

Intentionality, Not Certainty

Have you met someone who is absolutely certain about everything? Do you like that person? Probably not.

My interactions with other parents have been the same. The least enjoyable other parents are the ones who are certain that how they are raising their kids is the single best way. This certainty then insinuates that you, as a different parent, are an idiot for not doing the same.

Search “parenting” on Amazon and you get 65 results all with 4.5+ star ratings. That means that for the first book, there are thousands of parents saying “this worked for me!” That means that for the second book, which says something different than the first book, there are thousands of parents saying “this worked for me!” And so on and so forth for book after book after book.

No one has cracked parenting. Science has not yet been able to scan a baby and say “there is a 100% chance that if you breastfeed, let them outside once a day, read these three books each night, and have them do cold plunges on Sundays, they will be in the top 1% of humans.”

Even worse, in 50 years we’ll look back in horror on something we’re doing now. Remember plastics? In Dustin Hoffman’s 1967 breakout role in Mrs. Robinson we learned “there’s a great future in plastics”. Fast forward to 2025 and there’s a not-so-great future in microplastics. At least one mainstay in our life right now, some thing that our kids are exposed to, will turn out to be harmful. Can you guess which one?

That’s why certainty is so irritating. With so much unknowable, how are you professing to know it all? That’s why my favorite parents are the ones who have intention and consistency. They are the ones who sit down, think about it, choose a path that feels right to them, and then follow it until something indicates they should change. When you talk to them, they lay out the why’s and follow it up with “what about you guys?”

When that’s your approach as a parent, I don’t care if you’re renting baby orangutangs to help socialize your kid - if you’ve got a reason and are open to it not working, then have at it!

The Great Screen Debate

Before kids, I was one of those people who said “it’s really sad. You go on a plane and all these kids are just zombied out in front of screens the whole flight. It’s just negligent.”

Here’s what I didn’t know: over the age of 6 months, planes are a kid’s worst nightmare. Oh we flew to Florida and France and California when Miles was under 6 months. We were young and fancy free parents with a kid who could travel anywhere. Then, a day before we left France, Miles learned to crawl. There is nothing else he wanted to do, and for 9 hours on the plane, crawling was the one thing that wasn’t allowed. Also Marisa had bad Covid. It was a catastrophe.

With the introduction of a phone and Miss Rachel and Coco Melon and other mildly annoying shows out there, Miles now sits still. Is this a dangerous sedative we’re now employing that will have long term impacts?

Here’s the answer which I didn’t appreciate before: screens used with a purpose - to endure a stretch of time that otherwise would be miserable for all involved - is a win for everybody. My prior assumption was that all these kids were living 24/7 in front of their screens, that the scene on the airplane was representative of their entire life. For some, it might have been, but for others, it was a short term salve that was removed when the plane ride ended.

Screens obviously will be a part of any kid’s life - 2nd graders use iPads now instead of textbooks - but my initial judgement around exposing kids to screens was based on the moment in time I was most aware of it: the airplane I was stuck in for hours. Now that I have a kid to manage 24 hours a day, I am as far from worried about screens as you can get.

Final Grade: B+

One year in I’d give us an B+. It was an A, but I took us down one third a letter grade for every 75 times Miles has bumped his head. Also he almost choked on a small leaf he took from a bush outside but I didn’t know plants were a threat so I’m giving myself a pass.

He’s alive. He’s happy. He seems to be thriving. He still likes to share for the time being. I think we’re doing a pretty good job.

Now if we can just follow the same exact playbook for the second, third, and fourth we’ll be golden. Wait what? Kids can have different personalities? Oh boy.