JenniferP posted: "This question came in a while ago and I was holding onto it for possible book inclusion after sending a private draft reply to the person who asked, but the manuscript has changed shape since then and it's time to release it into the world. Dear Captain " CaptainAwkward.com
This question came in a while ago and I was holding onto it for possible book inclusion after sending a private draft reply to the person who asked, but the manuscript has changed shape since then and it's time to release it into the world.
Dear Captain Awkward,
I'm about to become a dad and I'm terrified. I'm not just scared of stuff like school shootings and global collapse, but also that I will somehow screw up my kid so bad that they'll have a terrible life, or they'll hate me and want nothing to do with me when they're grown up.
Part of my problem is that I have no role model or template for what I'm even supposed to do here. I lost both of my parents to an accident before I was 10, and my younger siblings and I ended up being split up and raised by other relatives who lived in different states. Those relatives fed us and got us through school and out into the world, and I know they did their best to love us and make sure we could still see each other a couple times a year. But we were never a family again, and now that we're all grown up, we barely talk.
Addiction runs rampant in our family. Substance abuse is part of why I don't have parents anymore, and both of my siblings and the adults who had custody of them have struggled with alcohol and drug problems and had brushes with the law. I can't help feeling like it's partly my fault. I'm the oldest by a few years, and I feel like if I'd tried harder and looked out for them more instead of being so wrapped up in myself, they'd be in better shape.
I'd probably be just like them if not for my step-grandma, a former nurse who was adamant that I never get involved with substances and who made sure I got an education. Thanks to her, I've managed to graduate college, find a stable career that I mostly like, and approximate life as a functional adult. We used to be in touch even after she divorced my grandfather and he died, but she was living in a nursing home when COVID hit and died in the first wave. There was no funeral to go to and I don't even know where she's buried. If I did I'd have them put "Here lies my last stable relative" on the grave. Or maybe just, "Thank you."
My amazing wife has a good (if not always great) relationship with her parents, so I guess our children will have at least some functional role models in their lives. She keeps reassuring me that when the time comes, I'll do just fine, and we're both trying to read as much as we can about babies and how to keep them alive throughout her pregnancy. But whenever her side of the family gets together for big celebrations, I feel like an alien visiting from another planet. And I can feel them all eyeing me with trepidation every time they hear another story about someone in my family getting out of rehab or almost losing custody of their kids. They thought it was weird and sad when my side of the church was almost empty at our wedding, but now I think they're relieved.
We're the first people among our friends to take this step, and all of them are excited for us, but one of my oldest friends has made a few jokes about how our kid will be the "first pancake" (like the shitty test pancake that ends up raw or too burnt to eat so you know how long to cook the other ones) and that he's still not sure how I fooled my wife into thinking I was "dad material." Thankfully he didn't make the first joke in front of my very pregnant, very nervous wife, or I would have had to kill him. I asked him what he meant by the second one and he said something about how "closed off" I am and that he's always thought of me as kind of a loner, not a family man. We've always been pretty harsh and dark with our jokes, and called each other feral pieces of shit our whole lives, so it wasn't totally out of bounds, but I keep wondering if he's trying to tell me something.
Am I doomed to mess up yet another generation? What if I'm too selfish and closed off to be anybody's dad? And how do I avoid being one of the dads that people write to you about, the ones whose adult kids dread visiting them and need years of therapy to process their horrible childhoods? In about three months the people at the hospital are going to hand me a tiny human and I could use some operating instructions here.
Thanks for any wisdom you can provide,
Finals Are Tomorrow, And I Did Some Of The Reading But Not All Of It
Dear Finals Are Tomorrow,
Congratulations! I hope that everything about extruding the baby into the world goes as smoothly as possible for everyone involved.
People ask me for parenting advice all the time and usually the answer is, I have not the foggiest idea what to tell you. I've never played for those stakes. I've never had to walk around with my entire heart outside my body and send it to a place they have something called "active shooter drills." My cats had to go to the vet for a routine checkup and shots this week, it made them upset and one of them (Daniel) hid away for most of the night and wouldn't eat, and I was a wreck of anxiety. How are all of you DOING this?
He's fine. Velcro-mode resumed.
I'm not a parent, but I am a chronic and inveterate observer of human behavior, and you asked me, so I will tell you what I have observed in case it helps at all.
First, every parent I know, no matter how prepared, describes leaving the hospital with a brand new baby for the first time the exact same way: "Wait, they just...? ...hand you...? ...a tiny helpless baby...? ...and say 'good luck'...and you can just ....leave? Shouldn't A Grown-up step in at some point? Oh shit, have they mistaken *me* for a Grown-Up? Oh no, no, no, that can't be right." One of my friends from grad school made a short experimental film during her first pregnancy where she inter-cut stock footage of old-timey carnival rides with fetal development milestones from medical training films to mimic the fear and exhilaration of falling forward into the unknown. I can only speculate, but I imagine that this near-universal experience of pre- and post-natal terror is a sensation similar to stage fright: Your body understands that you care a lot about doing a good job, and it knows that all the preparation in the world is not the same as Doing The Thing For Real, so it gives you the gift of a massive adrenaline spike, spins you around three times, and shoves you toward the light.
Again, I only have observation to go on here, but once the baby is born you've got a pretty large window where being a good parent is like, 10% about supporting the head, getting vaccines, avoiding diaper rash, and following other "how is babby stay alive" instructions from the panoply of wifely research, parenting books, knowledgeable in-laws, and pediatricians you have access to and 90% about being a team with your wife. Judging from the failure cases proliferating anywhere relationship advice is sought, sold, or given online, the two biggest stressors on brand new moms I routinely see are this: 1) They feel like they have to parent their partner at the same time they are figuring out how to heal their own body and parent a baby. For instance, the partner is theoretically willing to do their share of feeding, diaper changes, bathing, etc. and/or prepare food and do household chores, but they don't take initiative and need so much coaxing and coaching every single time that it becomes "not worth it" to bother. 2) Their partner does not back them up when intrusive people (esp. in-laws) overstep boundaries in the name of "helping." Based on what you've told me, neither of these particularly sound like you, but if there's any stuff that your wife routinely handles to keep your household running, now's the time to make sure you know how to handle it solo while also staying employed and keeping all of your own balls in the air.
From there you've got several years of being the world's greatest dad by virtue of being your child's best and only dad. They will know you as the smiling man with the big warm arms and the gentle hands that make them feel safe. As long as they are safe, warm, fed, and loved, babies don't give a single fuck about your deep-seated issues. It's one of their best qualities. Their second best quality (taken from someone who knows about as much about raising one as you do) is that the moment they feel unsafe, cold, hungry, or unloved, they are pretty excellent at giving immediate, actionable feedback. Like, they can't use words or do anything with their adorable wee useless hands, and you will definitely need to anticipate and keep track of certain stuff like ambient temperatures and how long it's been since the last naptime, etc. but "Crying = figure out why and see if you can fix it" is a classic feedback loop that will get you pretty far.
From there, what I've got sums up as "Children are people, and people are not objects." As we fast-forward to identifying the main sources of lasting trauma, conflict, ongoing power struggles, guilt, anxiety, and avoidance in adult parent-child relationships that I see in my inbox and try to work our way backwards to something you can use, that's basically what you need to know. Children are people. People are not things. If you treat them like things, you will inevitably do damage. I'm going to steer clear of the worst case scenarios of physical abuse, sexual abuse, or outright neglect and abandonment. It's not that these things are exactly rare, but a) I assume you are not going to do any of them and b) in the unlikely event you did it would be *very* obvious why your kids stopped speaking to you and you wouldn't be writing to me about it anyhow. When I meet small-to-intermediate-sized antagonists in my inbox, they usually take some combination of these shapes:
Parents who treat their kids like their property, the legal definition of which includes the right to abuse, transform, and destroy. They think that their kids are something they created. A lot of these fights come down to questions of identity and a perception that a harsh world is justification for being as cruel as possible to their children in preparation (but not a good reason to make the world less harsh). They often show up in letters here as "I know my dad was just doing the best he could when he (re-enacted Full Metal Jacket in my Cub Scout troop)(threw away all my toys because I got a bad grade once)(policed my gender until it made me want to die)(Insert any 'I'm just awful to you because I love you so much' example of your choice here), but I have a kid now and it's really not okay for him to do that stuff anymore."
Parents who treat their kids like mirrors. They are by and large ambitious, successful people, so they expect perfect, successful kids who prove to the world that the parents get an 'A' in parenting. These kids can't possibly struggle, fail at anything, have disabilities or exist in non-thin non-standard bodies, wear "unflattering" clothes, or experience upsetting feelings like "anger" or "loneliness" because any vulnerability in the child exposes flaws in the parent. One telltale sign of these is when the kid is afraid to tell the parents about medical conditions, job loss, or other heartbreaks because not only will the parents not help with whatever it is, dealing with their waves of denial and disappointment on top of having to deal with the actual problem will make everything 100 times worse. When these parents look at their kids, they're looking for stuff to fix or improve, not stuff to enjoy, like they're so caught up in what their kid should be like that they can't like the one they have.
Parents who treat their kids like shaky investments. Think: "I fed you, housed you, clothed you, sent you to school, and all the other bare minimum stuff in the 'parent' job description, so now you owe me forever! You owe me obedience, you owe me compliance, you owe me all your money, you owe me a consistent level of achievement, you owe me following the career path I choose for you, you owe me on-demand access to your living space and time and attention, you owe me every holiday forever, you owe me a say in every choice you make from education to career to romantic relationships to how you dress and what you call yourself, you owe me the chance to control how you raise any future kids you might have, and you owe me these things totally independently of how I treat you. Come on, it's not like I ever hit you or anything."
Parents who treat their kids like emotional support animals. Often manifesting as adults who have no friends, no close family ties, no hobbies or interests, no church or other community, absolutely no mental health support or counseling, not one single fellow adult or social space to hang out in, but they do have this one child who is the absolute center of their universe which gives them the right to be the center of that child's universe in return. "We're more like best friends actually!" "Oh, don't be silly! I don't need anybody but you!" In these scenarios, the parents are often survivors who were parented in turn by survivors who were also incapable of dealing with their emotions or fully healing from the fallout of extreme neglect, abuse, trauma, poverty, divorce, etc. and they tend to either repeat the same pattern or wildly overcompensate in the other direction. In friendships and romantic relationships between peers, it is incredibly hard to be someone's only person and feel responsible for them even when it conflicts with your own happiness. Children can't just leave imbalanced relationships whenever they want to, and the fucked-up power dynamic of having your authority figure also desperately need you is a ticking time bomb of guilt and distress.
If I had to break that list down into just two big categories, it would be Authoritarian Parents Who Are Obsessed With Image And Control vs. Needy Parents Who Think Having Children Means Never Having To Make Friends As An Adult Or Go To Therapy.
At the toxic extremes, both types find any evidence that their child is growing up to be a separate person with their own inalienable human rights, identities, tastes, needs, ethics, opinions, and preferences to be unbearably threatening. Both fall into the trap of thinking that knowing more than a tiny baby or a fifteen-year-old about some aspects of life means that they know more about everything, always, and forever, including that child's subjective experiences of their own life. Both types treat boundaries like personal attacks and think that consent does not apply to them, and both seem to think that "unconditional love" means that they are the only ones who ever get to set conditions like "My house, my rules, your house, also my rules!" They are shocked and appalled that their adult children might expect the same basic consideration as others or decide to match their energy. Both use their children to work out their own issues and expect their children to prioritize their feelings at all times in all things.
The specific behaviors associated with authority vs. need can manifest differently (one skewing more toward compliance, the other toward access & attention) but the results can look shockingly similar: Adult children who love their families very much and who desperately want to find ways to interact that don't actively hurt. Adult children who are are used to hiding in plain sight, forever stuck between telling the truth about who they are and being punished or adding another lie to the pile. Adult children who are afraid of showing vulnerability or asking for help because they exist under a perpetual cloud of pressure and disappointment. Adult children who feel horribly guilty if they don't want to be a parent's only source of social interaction and emotional support forever. Adult children who don't feel like they are allowed to have any needs of their own because they don't want to let a beloved parent down. Adult children who find themselves in toxic relationship after relationship because they grew up learning that you don't get to say "no" to people who say they love you. Adult children who realized that their survival depends on getting as far away as they could but still wonder if there was some other way because they want a family so very bad, which is not a stupid thing to want.
Alongside "children are people, and people are not objects," the other bedrock principle that helps me navigate this painful, tangled web is that love cannot override consent. Parents get to make a lot of rules when their children are small and vulnerable, but nobody can possibly love you so much that they get to decide who you are There's a whole big culture war going on right now that is fueled by religious fanatics who believe that their perpetual, absolute ownership of their own children entitles them to control not just everyone else's kids but also everything about other people's bodies and our language and what we read and see and love. They find the concept of consent to be alien and threatening, and I don't really know how to talk to them. I am never surprised when their adult children stop talking to them, I just wish so many of them didn't have to crawl through hell to get free. I categorically do not respect any religious beliefs that make room for hitting babies (seriously, all the content warnings) or persecuting queer and trans people and I'm out of empathy for people who think this is still up for debate. Nobody gets to own another human being, and if you think you do then I think you are a bad person, not just a bad parent or a bad fellow citizen. At this point in life, my priority is not gently persuading people who are actively harming me and mine to believe in different stuff, it's to organize with everyone who doesn't agree with them to strip them of their power to harm all of us. My other priority is to help any of their victims who wash up on my shores make it closer to safety.
Good news, I don't think you are in danger of becoming one of those scary parents, but I think it's worth mentioning them because you will end up having to protect your kid from them in one form or another and because I think it's worth questioning your own relationship to authority and obedience as your child grows up. As a parent, lots of decisions are by necessity yours alone, and often "Hey! Do it my way, right now, because I said so!" is the only way because safety or some other urgent necessity demands it. The mere act of getting a toddler out the door somewhat close to on time is going to require multiple instances where you zip an irate being who is screaming, unbendable, and somehow increasing exponentially in mass into a little snowsuit and strap them into a car seat against their will because you gotta be somewhere, and as much as you can be like "I know, little buddy, everything is awful and you are having a lot of feelings right now," you cannot afford (in a literal sense) to let those feelings dictate the pace of your day.
But not everything is gonna be like that, so if you hear an angry "Because I said so!" voice coming out of your own mouth more than once in a blue moon it's worth slowing down to make sure you're not trying to control stuff that is better governed by informed consent. Ask yourself, "Why am I so mad right now? And why is obedience necessary? What am I afraid will happen if I don't get my way?" If you had to explain your reasoning for why the child needs to do stuff a certain way, could you do it? Would it be persuasive to you if, say, your boss gave you the same reasoning? Anecdata: The parents of kids I know who are both happy and polite do stuff like apologize for occasional yelling and stop and explain why certain rules exist.
As for insurance against becoming an entitled-needy-overcompensating parental figure, the first step is fairly straightforward: You must deal with your own trauma about how you were raised. You must find ways to process your complicated feelings about your family relationships as they stand now, addiction, and your fears of history repeating itself. You must find ways to express uncomfortable emotions (including anger) in a way that makes them less volatile and scary for you instead of holding it all inside, and you must find a way to forgive yourself for not singlehandedly holding your family together in the wake of disaster while you were also a child. And eventually, once the sleep deprivation starts to wear off, you must seek social support and community outside your nuclear family and your one mean friend from back in the day. Neglecting your own needs will not make you better parent.
That was a lot of words to say, "Dude, get a therapist." But yeah, please get a therapist. You are self-aware about this stuff, which is not the same as being okay, and that is something therapy can help with over time. You are inevitably going to screw up sometimes and you will need someone to tell you that each and every mistake you make is not the apocalypse barreling out of your burned out family tree. Your wife can't be the only sounding board. And if your kid needs a therapist someday, please get rid of the idea that it makes you a bad parent. We're messy, fragile beings and sometimes we just need somebody to walk us through our feelings.
While we are making lists, you must find ways to grieve your beloved guardian so that you can absorb and hand down all the wonderful things she gave you. She would be so proud of you and happy for you. She would hold you and your baby so tight and I'm so sorry she is not here to do it. May I suggest writing her periodic letters where you tell her all about how your baby is doing as if she's still living across the country? You clearly have a knack with words, some sleepless nights ahead, and I think it might be healing for you. I don't believe the dead watch over us because otherwise I would never be able to poop again, but I do believe that the things of this universe are neither created nor destroyed.Your relative's mass is still out there, somewhere, and some of her energy is still here in you.
One final thing. Think of it as good practice for when someone says asshole stuff to you in front of your kid someday and you can't realistically fight them due to stuff like "setting a good example" and "laws" and "violence being wrong." Your friend needs to shut it the hell down. If it helps at all, sometimes people get real mean about the stuff that they are most insecure about, so I would take this guy's input with about as much salt as when the Morton Salt Factory partially collapsed under a salt avalanche in 2014. However, recognizing that someone's bad behavior is probably not about you doesn't mean it doesn't affect you and isn't the same as giving it a pass. Possible talking points: "You need to knock it off forever with the 'pancake' jokes and digs about what a terrible dad I will be. I know you're trying to be funny and that saying the worst thing that pops into our heads is just how we show love, but it is really pissing me off and hurting my feelings." If he apologizes and acts right, give yourself a gold star for setting one boundary. If he doubles down, and you spend less time with him as a result, give yourself ten gold stars for enforcing the boundary.
To review:
Your brand new baby is unlikely to ask you where the rest of your relatives went and how everything probably your fault. Be a good husband, keep the kid alive, and you're good for a while.
The middle stages of parenting are uncharted territory for me and I have no advice about them. Most of the recurring adult child vs. parent problems I see come down to unhealthy expectations about control and unhealthy expectations about emotional fulfillment. Children are a bad place to look for either of these things because they are people, not objects.
As possible prevention measures or just because it's a good idea in general, get a therapist to help unpack your history and interrogate your own relationship to authority.
Tell your friend to either be supportive or be elsewhere. Your inner critic needs no assistance.
Your wife is absolutely correct, you're going to be great at this.
As much love as a total stranger can send you before it gets super-weird, that's how much I've got for you right now.
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