So many Shrinks are averse to disclosing anything about their personal lives…with good reason. Self disclosure is frowned upon as the therapist’s ‘issues’ should not contaminate the client’s therapeutic process. I understand and respect this, this post however is aimed at men who are becoming fathers.
Talking to other men about issues related to emotions, or rites of passage (for example becoming a father) is not something that is widely discussed, if at all within many men’s social circles. Rare is the time while watching a rugby game, or clustered around the barbeque that one man turns to another and says “so hey bro, i was wondering…you know those dummy clips your kid has… where did you buy them?” , or “jeez bru, i haven’t had sex with my wife for months now, i feel like i’m just a cashpoint machine who’s job it is to always be patient and understanding and quite honestly i’m really pi**ed off and confused about it all”. Well…you are not alone, there are millions of men around the world right now who are struggling with similar issues.
I began documenting my experiences approximately 3 weeks prior to the birth of my daughter and want to offer a semi-autobiographical vignette of the fatherhood experience from a personal, psychological and often satirical perspective. My entries will cover the various stages i encounter along the sometimes treacherous, daunting and ultimately life-changing process of becoming a father and hopefully more human, human being.
Recent entries are first…most are written in brief snatches of time between duties so please excuse any spelling or grammatical errors, i”ll get to them later…(like everything else).
15 April
I have great compassion for men who don’t actually know what is going on sometimes. I am one of them. Sometimes no matter what you do (or don’t do) it’s just not ‘good enough’. A client recently recounted his struggle at home (identity and narrative have been changed to protect the identity of the client although he gave permission for me to use this vignette).
“i try and help with the kid, but he just wants his mom, so i’m kinda left feeling really confused, following him from room to room with a nappy in my hand. My wife comes out of the bedroom, looks at the scene and starts shouting at me telling me i can’t do anything right. It feels that way sometimes…i go to work, deal with stress all day and then come home and get shouted at because i’ve misplaced the bum cream. Sometimes i feel like i’m going mad!”
These early days of co-parenting are dangerous, of that there is no doubt. There are so many projections, so many expectations and so much stress about that it is not strange for couples to skirt the “abyss”. Unless couples are able to communicate effectively, take time out for themselves and as a couple, the family system will struggle.
While the mother may project her feelings of frustration and anger onto the father, this does not imply that the father does not carry some ammunition himself. On the contrary, many men carry repressed feelings of anger and disappointment which they are unable to express into the fragile family ecosystem. Where do these unprocessed feelings go? Into work, behaving like a pack-animal, carrying ever increasing levels of stress some men turn to substances and other addictions (sex, money, gambling etc). Unless it is addressed, a man’s Shadow (that which is unacknowledged and repressed) can begin to contaminate the family system leading that which is sacred down a very dark path.
April Fools Day
A pinch and a punch for the first of the month…Well to be honest, it’s felt as if its been a month of being pinched and punched. While I am fully aware of how valuable and blessed we are to be able to have my wife be at home for the first year of our little one’s life, I am quite sure that if she doesn’t do something soon, she will drive us all mad! The idea of being a full time mom was very appealing at first, but as the months roll on and the nappies pile up, I have watched my wife begin to move about the house like an automaton, a wraith…seemingly indistinct around the edges. She has always been a creative juggernaut and in the past our home has been steadily filled with her efforts, recently though things have ground to a halt. Now i hear you say, “Jamie, give her a break, she’s a full time mom and the first six months are hectic!”. I agree, but I want my wife back! I want to chat about things besides whether or not my daughter has had a solid stool, I want to see her in a pair of those sexy pants she used to wear, speaking of sex?!
It’s hard being a shrink and a man and a father and a husband all at the same time. I know what i’m supposed to be… understanding, empathic, supportive…I get it. But sometimes…I just want to be the spoilt child who gets his own way and has love and attention lavished upon him. Is that so bad? So, after i’ve had my sulky ‘pity party’, i’ll get up, dust myself off and man the F up. But in the meantime I’m going to scowl and grumble a bit.
Till later.
March (!)
Friday night
When my wife left for the weekend 3 hours ago, i heard a now familiar slightly anxious inner voice saying,
Bottles? – check! Milk? check! Bottle warmer? check!Dinner check? etc etc
…it feels like 3 days ago. I have a beautiful 9 year old daughter from a previous relationship who is with me for the weekend too. In the past 3 hours i have fed little one, made supper, bathed the kids, listened to my older daughter’s litany of her social wrangling on the playground, defrosted tomorrow’s lunch, cleaned the kitchen from the mayhem, made more mess, changed a nappy or two…my God! How do mothers do this all day every day? My respect for my wife is growing by the minute…and if i make it through this, i’ll be sure to tell her.
(Last week)
Hear Ye! Hear Ye!
During the first weekend of March, my wife will be heading off on an adventure for 2 nights…We debated robustly about whether or not she should go (she was adamant that it was too soon to be separated from Grace for a weekend, I on the the other hand think it will do her the world of good to go and look after herself and regenerate). It was only some time after the dust had settled that i began to realise what i was letting myself in for!
Suddenly i heard the voice over for Survivor (Hout Bay)
“1 Man…1 infant…2 nights…no breasts…”
My blood quickened, my mind raced. I was haunted by fantasies of pacing with a fevered, howling, inconsolable infant at 2:24 a.m.
My wife keeps asking me whether i will be alright, whether i don’t want her to stay…some small, quivering part of me wants to shout out “Yes! Please God Yes!” but i shan’t show my fear, instead a hastily constructed calm descends over my features as my slightly strained voice is heard to say “don’t be silly love, there is nothing we won’t be able to handle.”
And strangely enough
Some part of me
Believes
It
22 Jan
My partner has been struggling with postnatal distress for the past couple of months. Even though i am a clinical psychologist who has wrestled with depression ‘out there’, it’s quite another story when I hear it’s rasping growl as I walk into the house after a long day. I know Depression well, i know how it moves in people, i recognize its energetic signature, much like a shark can detect a drop of blood per millionth. Watching how my partner struggles to hold herself together while trying to remain desperately connected to our child which she has eagerly anticipated for most of her adult life is heartbreaking. Thankfully my wife and i have access to incredible resources which have made a significant impact on our capacity to cope with the difficulties that come with Postnatal depression.
While there are numerous resources for women, there is little or no assistance for men. Many men have come to my practice hollow eyed, disorientated, resentful and burnt out. To all you champions who work all day and then return home to have the baby thrust into your arms by a tearful partner i say to you… despair not! You are not alone!
It is so important to find anchors in what feels like a chaotic situation. It is vital to the family system’s survival for there to be caregivers who have some level of energetic reserves available, both for themselves, their partner’s… and their children. When there is no energy in a system it begins to break down and things can get very scary, very fast. Both mother and father need to break what sometimes feels like an endless cycle of sacrifice by setting up structures where both parties can refuel themselves.
Grab your surfboard, running shoes or gym shorts and go and look after yourself for a couple of hours a week, get some childcare support that you can trust into the home so that your partner can have some time out too. Remember that you need fuel if you are to be able to be a calm, resonant partner and father and that if you are burnt out and reactive, you are contributing to the problem, not solving it.
Go gently
2 Jan
Happy New Year! So, this New Year’s eve was novel. When thinking about what we were going to do the choices were relatively limited, should we watch cable or get a DVD. Whoooeee! Would the fun ever end?! Suffice to say that after the girls retired at about 8:30 p.m. on New Year’s eve, I decided to really push the envelope, I poured a glass of wine, made a fire and then…fell asleep on the couch and woke up with a stiff neck and Dinner for One on the telly at 3:17 a.m. Gone are the days of burning the candle at both ends, strutting my stuff on a nightclub dance floor, full of tequila thinking i’m really cool. These days ‘really cool’ looks different. Leaving the house without vomit on my shirt is really cool, remembering to do up my fly after 3 hours sleep is really cool, having a moment alone with my wife is really cool. Even though I’m growing up, I refuse to grow old, so next New Year’s…i may even be able to stay awake to usher it in.
Perhaps a bit of Walt Whitman to start the year…
Stout as a horse, affectionate,
naughty, electric!
I and this mystery, here we stand.
20 Dec
As we rapidly approach the end of the year, I find myself in rather a pensive mood. All the activity out there in the world of Cape Town during the festive season feels chaotic. Nothing fills me with more dread than the thought of packed shopping malls, irate drivers, swarming beaches and melted ice cream dripping off the chins of screaming children who have lost their parents in the tumult. Bah Humbug? Absolutely! This year I have decided to do as little as possible, to batten down the hatches with my family, something akin to some of those doomsday folk in the trailer park belt of the US. I have stocked the cupboards with lovely food, bought a few cracking books I have waited all year to read, made sure the pool is clean (a rather Zen-like pursuit of late…Zen and the Art of Pool Maintenance). Soon i will switch off the cell phone and calm will descend over the realm…Oh wait, i forgot, I have a new born to tend, a relationship to rebuild with my wife and in between all these expectations, a self to reclaim and restore. Hmmm, perhaps 3 weeks won’t be long enough.
10 Dec
I’ve noticed an interesting thing about the importance of timing. Grace has her own rhythms, she eats when she’s hungry, sleeps when she’s tired etc. Often those rhythms conflict with ours, we may be wanting to do something important when she is hungry, or she may want connection at an inopportune time. So, what to do? Does one impose a rigid structure on her behaviors in order to align her with our rhythms, do we allow carte blanche? A free for all and get hooked by her almost primal desires? Or do we gently nudge her into a space that is a compassionate compromise between all of our needs? Easier said than done, but the latter is the strategy we are currently adopting. Grace is an active child, so there is little time during the day where she has deep sleeps, this restricts her mother’s ability to function and obviously causes stress (for everyone), the payoff is that Grace sleeps through the night (from approximately 9pm- 4:30am). Currently we are trying to nudge her into some kind of routine in the day which is close to her natural cycle, basically adapting our routines to hers. It’s tough work, sometimes one or both of her parents become overwhelmed by the various demands placed on us as parents and partners. I’m writing this blog half dressed for work, with a bit of vomit on my shoulder, Grace is crying and the house is in a bit of a mess. Talk later. J
29 November (8 weeks old…and i feel like i’ve aged 10 years in that time)
Phew! That’s all I can say, this parenting gig ain’t for sissies…I (some may say foolishly) volunteered to look after Grace while my wife went to yoga. At the time this seemed like a really good idea, She would be able to reclaim a valuable part of her pre-Grace identity, I would be able to bond with little one, A win-win right? Wrong! Grace was asleep when mom left which seemed like a good thing…what neither of us had worked out prior to this genius plan was that she hadn’t eaten for a couple of hours. As I settled down to watch a bit of cricket, Grace remembered that she was hungry and went from deep sleep to hysterical infant in less time than it takes a Lexus to hit a 100kph. Suffice to say that i thought i had it all sorted, i strolled calmly to the fridge where i discovered a relatively hefty amount of expressed milk. I heated it, making soothing, rocking motions all the while and silently congratulated myself on my one armed proficiency…until i dropped the bottle on the floor while trying to screw on the lid. From that point on, all hell broke loose, literally…for 2 hours! Let me just reinforce that… 2 HOURS! 120 minutes…7 200 excruciating seconds! It’s incredible just how long 2 hours can feel with a screaming, hungry, inconsolable infant in your arms. For any of you out there who think you are good with kids, i bet most of you have breasts. I have never before wished for breasts, but those 2 hours made me wish a lot of things…most of which will never see the light of day. Thankfully. Here’s to breasts, good intentions, back up bottles, long lost quiet sundays and a reminder not to take it all too seriously.
16 November
6 Weeks have passed since Grace was born. Just when you think you’re getting the hang of it, Grace throws a spectacular wobble on our first early dinner sortie. We returned home shaken and stirred, reassuring each other that “these things happen” and trying to maintain our good humor. Babies are not machines, no matter what the sleeping, burping, boundary toting ‘experts’ may claim. There is something within me that believes that I should trust Grace and her rhythms, that if we as parents listen closely enough to what she is saying, she will guide us as to her needs. I have found that the less static there is from ‘experts’, magazines, books and comparison with other parents, the less inadequate we have felt, the more trust we have had and the calmer we have been. Grace has her own heartbeat and if we just take the time to be quiet enough to hear it, everything turns out just fine and the anxiety and subsequent need to control all evaporates.
Here’s to Trusting the Greater Rhythm.
6 November
Until yesterday I was suffering from an acute case of ‘compassion fatigue’, for those of you not familiar with this term it essentially means that I was ‘burnt-out’ by the adjustment necessary over the past few months and was unable to keep smiling and offering support. I began to notice the signs about a week ago, initially, i noticed that i had become more irritable, i began to mutter internally about the most banal of issues (e.g. there not being enough milk in the refrigerator…like the old Cremora ad) and finally there was an almost visceral nausea which overcame me whenever we started talking about all things baby-related. Thankfully, instead of getting hooked into the drama of it all by continuing to martyr myself in order to be ‘the good husband’, i decided to gap out for a few hours. I waited for an opportune time when mother and child were occupied and then returned to the nourishing arms of my lover, Nature. Instead of calling the mates and downing some testosterone saturated ales, i decided to make a deposit into the energy reserves through walking down to a secluded beach near my home. The walk was relatively arduous, the sun was warm and there was no-one to be seen. Slowly my mind began to settle, the wind blew through me removing stale cobwebs as i tried to shepard my addled mind into the moment. Joy began to trickle up from some deep reserve within and soon i was on the deserted beach which to my delight was totally empty. Immediately I stripped down, a little self consciously and ran into the freezing ocean which punched me awake. I felt invigorated and lay on a warm rock to doze in the sun. I woke up intermittently to repeat the process for what felt like hours. Finally, sated I returned home feeling lighter, discharged, recharged and ready for connection. Nature and a little quite time on my own regenerates me rapidly.
Bring on the week!
31 October
I’ve been exiled! We’ll actually it’s self imposed (although i’ve probably just been flummoxed into believing that). What with Grace waking up every other hour for a feed, my hectic work schedule and a couple of frayed nerves, it was decided that i should move into the ‘nursery’. I have been ejected from the connubial bed, there is now an other in my space who has hypnotized my wife with her wily ways… No more midnight elbows when i tried to become amorous, no more stumbling into work with my zip undone after an hour’s sleep, no more irritated pillow talk. Aaahh… it sounds like a good deal to me…wait, hang on, did we agree on when this exile will end?! Is there any nookie on the horizon? It’s a bit lonely and surreal out here on the periphery, surrounded by flying cows and fairies. Perhaps i’ll just close my eyes for a moment to think about it.
30 October
Hate in the Phallic Container: I borrow the title of this entry from a colleague who works with many new parent couples. The underlying assumption of his paper was that the new mother carries a lot of ambivalent feelings about becoming a mother. Some of those feelings are not necessarily pleasant or acceptable to the self or society, for example, a new mother may feel great anger that her movements are being dictated to by someone other that herself (breastfeeding requires a lot of sitting around all day). The mother may be struggling with unresolved issues around her own parents and the place or roles they did or didn’t play in her own life…and so on. What does the new mother do with these often uncomfortable feelings? Well, in many cases they are projected onto the partner and as I can attest, being a projective target in spite of my Herculean efforts to be supportive can quite easily activates my ego defenses (or in layman’s terms…pisses me off). Being supportive through the relative isolation of the initial attachment between mother and child is one thing, but being shouted at and told that you don’t know how to apply cream to little one’s bum at 3 a.m. is quite another. I keep reminding myself that this is an exercise in patience, that my wife is still in love with me, that i am a loving and supportive father and that these struggles will pass as we find our balance and learn that there is enough space and love for all of us.
Till later…
17 October (approx 2 weeks since Grace was born)
I went back to work today. It was a strange feeling to leave my wife and newborn child at home. Since Grace joined us, i feel the most powerful, almost primal urge to protect my family. It may be the lack of deep, nourishing sleep which has made the quality of my thinking more brittle and anxious, or it may be a deep, genetically programmed instinctual response, either way i have wrung promises from my wife to keep the doors locked and to phone me in case of emergencies (no matter how small).
Today I phoned home many more times than is usual in order to check that everything was ok. I have so many worries that seem to be rabidly activated at this time, i worry about my family’s personal safety, my wife’s ability to cope with the never-ending series of demands placed on her by a newborn infant, i worry about financial security, I even began to worry incessantly about the kind of world my daughter would inherit if i do not become infinitely more eco-friendly. Suffice to say that this is a significant period of adjustment for all of us. An anxiety provoking, challenging, wondrous time as the transition is made from the womb to the world, from being footloose and fancy free to having to be ‘grown up’, from being relatively self serving to constantly serving the needs of others, from just thinking about today…to planning for tomorrow.
10 October (+6 days)
I’m tired, not as tired as my wife, but tired nonetheless. When the couple system is exhausted it’s easy to become emotionally thin and reactive. It’s a time to walk very gently together to minimize any conflict that may arise at this sensitive stage, it’s impossible not to get irritable with each other but it doesn’t have to descend into heated arguments at this sacred time. Well that’s the theory at least, in reality I feel more like a sherpa running around with two full cups of water in my hands trying not to spill any.
My partner is starting to play Leonard Cohen and looking at me very differently, something akin to a coiled rattlesnake waiting for me to put a foot wrong. Grace slept all day, waking only momentarily to feed and poo. I feel a deep well of love for her while she sits with me until she needs a boob and then the connection is lost again. Attachment between an infant and her father is important but is dwarfed by what is occurring between mother and child at this stage. On a theoretical, intellectual level i know and accept the importance of the mother-child dyad, but on an emotional level, the sometimes little boy in me feels a bit left out (no matter how hard my wife tells me how valuable all my support is). Men need to feel needed and when Grace is attached to that boob I feel a bit spare, so I offer to make tea, take out the garbage and clean up. It is an exercise in selflessness, in patience and tolerance and sometimes i fail miserably and have to retreat with my fantasy novel to the loo.
9 October (+5 days)
Grace was born on the 4th of October at 9:55 a.m (5 days ago) by an emergency C-section, it was an AWE INSPIRING experience. I’ve seen (and heard) many strange and fantastic things in my life…but watching my little daughter being yanked and pulled out of her mother’s womb through several layers of muscle and tissue was something that is still beyond my capacity to articulate accurately. It is possible that without this procedure mother (and) or baby may have perished due to various complications. To see Grace’s little foot emerge from the large stomach incision and then to be followed by her entire body (backwards) kicking and screaming into this world…leaves me speechless, humbled and extremely proud of mother and daughter’s efforts to be together. Watching Grace ‘latch’ to her mother’s breast in those first few moments after her delivery and to observe the look that came over both of them was my first glimpse of just how different things are going to be from this moment on.
See you soon…
25th September 2011 (about 2 weeks before liftoff!)
The Nesting Monster is afoot!
I came home after a full day’s work only to discover that the entire living room area had been revamped…I paused briefly and wondered whether i had stepped into someone else’s home, but no, it’s ours…i think. The misleading thing about the “Nesting Phase” is that it sounds relatively sedate, but i have discovered first-hand that the period just before giving birth is no such thing for the ‘happy couple’, rather it is a time of massive change in anticipation of the new arrival.
My wife has repacked her hospital bag more times than i care to count, woe be the man who foolishly points this out. I watch her refuse any help offered to move large pieces of furniture around our bedroom (in what appears to be a clockwise direction) with distinct fear gnawing in my belly that all this activity and heavy lifting is actually going to induce labour. I make what i feel are supportive suggestions only to be told that i don’t understand and that i must not dare interfere.
My bruised ego wants to get involved because it feels wounded and unappreciated but instead of getting into a circular argument about where my comfortable, tattered tv chair should go, i take the dogs for a long walk while i talk myself down. During this time while the anxious mother attacks her physical environment in order to establish some psychological equilibrium and contain her anxiety through doing, it certainly helps to keep a calm head and to ask yourself “does this REALLY matter?”. Being present to lend a hand if necessary, cultivating a capacity to just listen to the various physical and emotional difficulties that your partner may be experiencing does not normally come easy to many men and takes a particular type of attention and awareness during this anxious, uncertain time. Some couples breeze through the few weeks before a birth of their first child while others may use conflict (often about relatively inane things) to ‘de-frag’ their anxieties about what is to come. Many men need to learn to be supportive in the true sense of the word and nothing gets in the way quicker than a bruised ego, that is why it is so important to take responsibility for lowering your stress levels prior to the birth as your family will need you to keep grounded and rooted in order to keep the ‘container’ safe. Sometimes, easier said than done, but perhaps that is why i am writing this, to remind myself about what really matters…
