The Good Enough Parent
No sleep, it’s boring, but you’re still in it
I recently had some reflections on what it means to be a “good” or a “bad” parent, and decided that I really am neither, but I do think I’m “good enough. Maybe this rings true for you as another parent.
All the Parenting Materials (NOT)
I didn’t read ALL the books before our kid was born, and I definitely didn’t read them all once she was born (and I’ll get to why).
I read and listened to a handful, but what was really missing from all the reading I did was the reality. These books were very “if this thing happens with your child, here are all the things to try,” or “here are how you know your child is ready for X, Y, Z.”
The problem I realized all these books share is that they’re not about MY child, they’re about an amalgamation of kids, and kids are individuals, not amalgams.
And more importantly, you are not super mom or super dad, but a sleep deprived, most likely also working, flawed human (at least I know I am).
So screw the books, the most useful thing I had in my first year of parenting was a baby carrier and this 5’s sheet I printed out.
No Sleep for You
Sleep is very dependent on your baby and whether or not you breast feed, but my wife and I formula fed, so I ended up taking on more of the burden of feeding than I normally would. I also got a decent length paternity leave to kick things off.
Newborns don’t sleep for very long, and not necessarily very well. Whoever said “sleep like a baby” probably saw someone walking by with a sleeping baby (but they sure as heck didn’t have one at home).
No amount of preparation exists for the sleep deprivation of a newborn baby, in my opinion. I had 28 years of decent sleep, and then have spent the last three years trying to claw my way back to normal sleep.
You will beg, borrow and plead with each other for more sleep, and you will be at your worst, if you’re so used to having sleep. To survive you will:
- Nap (it becomes a requirement)
- Ingest Caffeine (if you’re already an addict then this isn’t going to help much)
- Do Therapy (I learned about the two ways of looking at the world much more in my sleep deprived time)
- Negotiate (if you feed her tonight, I’ll do your laundry for a week)
The Good Enough Parent accepts that sleep is something you will get back some day, but you do what it takes to survive during the time of no sleep.
At 6 months she slept pretty well, but occasionally a nice 6–8 hours of sleep would be blown apart by crying.
I used to wake up and hear her cry when she wasn’t crying. 🥲
These days, she gets up in the middle of the night and runs into our queen bed, making it hard for any of us to sleep. This has lead to me sleeping in her bed most nights. I’ll do anything for a good night of sleep!
But the sleep thing I at least knew something about, what I didn’t really internalize was that —
Yes, It Will Be Boring
Babies don’t move much. For like 6–9 months they really can’t do much besides move their eyes, head, and definitely their arms (ow). While they are cute, you will change outfit after outfit, diaper after diaper, until you adjust to the new normal.
And very quickly (at least for me), you find that your life has become boring as you deal with the poopie diapers and “goo goo gaa gaas.”
I survived my boredom like a good millennial; lots of listening to books and podcasts, while trucking around my baby in that awesome baby carrier. I eventually had to upgrade to pushing her around in a stroller wagon once she got too big, but I still end up carrying her around (all kids know the universal sign for “upsies”).
But as she’s grown and wanted to play/ interact more, I can’t rely on my millennial entertainment tricks. She notices the earbuds sticking out of my ear, or attempts to swipe my phone away if I’m mindlessly staring at it.
Darn it, I have to be present!
But we’re still playing little repetitive kid games, and stacking things. It’s still boring. But it’s as imperative now as it was before that I spend the time with her, AND focused on her, because I’m building something more fundamental than anything —
The Trust Investment
In my life I’ve always felt a strong feeling of trust towards my mom, but a pretty weak sense of trust in my dad. This is for more than one reason, but it comes down to the time I spent with each of them.
My parents got divorced when I was really young, so that I only have digitized videos showing them together, but no memories of them together.
My dad went from being in the house to an every other weekend visitor, and over time my trust in him lessened and lessened, to the point where I trust a complete stranger more than my dad.
What I realized along the way is that my dad really valued his own time. Much more than he valued my time. If something was boring to him, he’d try to make it fun for him, at the cost of being boring for me.
I’ve seen all manner of parents or guardians do this to their kids (mostly men in my experience), who aren’t willing to spend time with kids at their kids level, resulting in a lack of bonding. And that lack of bonding leads to a lack of trust.
The Good Enough Parent is present, as much as they can be, in the kid’s world, not the other way around. Doing things like learning kids songs on the guitar, or playing the same silly games over and over is what it means to be good enough.
Sure, you’ll get bored and have to stop things eventually, or maybe try (and fail) and make things interesting for the both of you. But “good enough” means you put in the time, even if it means you have to sit with your own thoughts.
I’m no super dad, but I hope to be good enough, and that my daughter will love and trust me.
