Notes to a new father

I was at the library yesterday returning some books. In the line in front of me a nicely dressed young man leaned over to the librarian and said softly, "Can you point me to the parenting section?"

She observed him closely as I did. In concert, we noticed his spic and span appearance, the neatly coiffed shoes, the clean fingernails.

He continued, "My wife and I just had a new baby and I want to do this right." He said it like he was answering our mutal stares, trying to explain what he was looking for and why.

I gather that she and I stared at him for very different reasons. I don't know how many requests she receives in a day for parenting information from a man who dresses like an attorney. Maybe she gets lots and I'm assuming. But my gut tells me that she probably gets more request for the current month's edition of ESPN news than for parenting research from men in his age bracket.

Still, I think we both admired him. I admired his willingness ask some good questions. After all, most parents probably don't take the time to evaluate if there is a better way to parent than what they personally experienced. I admired that he had awakened to the fact that there are different ways to parent and nuture a growing human being, a fact that most parents never seem to get around to figuring out. Somehow between putting together the swing set and filling out college applications, some of the important stuff gets pushed aside.

Admittedly, I stared at him because I wanted to blurt out, "What you need to know about parenting will never be in any book."

But parenting -- like age - has softened my over active blurt out responses and so I just watched as he busily went about his search.

As I write this, my oldest child is crashed on the sofa after a week-long party-fest called "Senior Week" in which he has been pomped and circumstanced in more ways than I care to know. He has stayed up all night partying with friends. He has walked down the graduation aisle while even his younger sister teared up. He's taken his last high school test and he's slowly saying good-bye to what up until now have been "life-long" friends.

And as he has made this important trek, his father and I have made one with him. For most of his life we've been slowly but surely coming to this point where we transition from hands on parenting to becoming parenting observers. It's a simple analogy: parenting is a lot like playing sports. In the beginning days, parenting is most like coaching 2 year olds in soccer: You do most of the work and hope the little guys get the general idea. The next stage is like playing one on one basketball: this stage of parenting is when kids are in the game and you're just trying to handle their defensive moves. By the late teenage years, it's more like the down hill slalom or lugers: the objective is to just trying to hold on as you speed towards what is (hopefully) a pre-determined finish line.

Admittedly, my husband and I have been watching these past few weeks in a dazed haze of recognition that, once again, our lives will be irrevocably altered by this person that has been visiting our lives for the past 18 years.

What I would say to that young father who is eagerly reading thick, glossy books at the library is simple. "Get yourself out of the way and get over doing it "right" and you just might have one of the best human experiences imagineable.

I often wonder if there was some inter-galactic discussion, some divine angel meeting- of- the minds at the start of creation when God looked out upon man and woman and wondered aloud, "How can I give them something of lasting power? How can I give them something that will touch their lives forever, changing them and giving them hope in a future and the promise of something greater than themselves?"

And at that point, I imagine that some other divine voice said softly, "Give them a piece of themselves that they have to nurture and hold and raise up. That way, their hearts will be pierced and broken and they will learn to love, to have hope and most of all to let go."

And the first angel must have said, "Hmmm. Is that such a good idea? Won't they mess it up? Maybe it would be OK if provide them some kind of instruction manual, like '7 steps to raising perfect human beings'?"

And the second angel responded, laughing softly again, "No, I think it's better if they think they are in control. Let them think that they have to come up with the answers and let them discover the ways to do that."

The first angel no doubt protested. "They'll screw it up! They'll be all focused on themselves and their careers and how to pay the bills. They'll worry about all the wrong things like where to live and what car to drive and they'll miss out on the most important things, like the reading fairy tales in the dark or walking through puddles with your shoes on."

And the second angel said, wisely, "Yeah, they will. And they'll mourn for that in ways that are indescribeable and in that sadness and grief, they'll discover something priceless. They'll discover that they are flawed human beings and that in being flawed they must give -- and expect -- grace for themselves first, so they can give it to their kids."

I remember the day my son came home from the hospital as a newborn. Maybe it was the drugs or the hormones coursing through my veins but I remember watching him as he slept and thinking, "I have absolutely no idea what to do next." I remember calling the hospital after a sleepness night and asking the nurse what to do to help my sleepless, screaming son. In my sleep-deprived state, I remembered that the discharge nurse had told me to "call anytime" and I was stupid enough to take her at her word.

I called that feverish morning, desperate for sleep and worried into a frenzy. I called that hospital like I was calling in on a warranty for a broken dishwasher:

"I just took this baby home...and I've been trying to get him to sleep and he keeps crying and crying."

I remember hearing a long pause from the nurse. Maybe she was waiting for more from me. Maybe she "muted" the button and was laughing herself to death. I hope that she was remembering her first week at home with a newborn.

At any rate she listened to me and gave me some ideas. I harriedly wrote down the instructions so I wouldn't forget and and then followed her suggestions to the letter: I removed his hat, booties and long-sleeved jumper so that he could try to sleep in the 100-degree August heat in our small, unairconditioned apartment. He quickly relaxed and fell asleep and I marveled at the miracle of human science. And I remembered thinking, "If I can't figure out THAT, what kind of mother will I be?" and I cried myself to sleep knowing that my child's life was doomed.

Perhaps it is in our ignorance that we have our greatest breakthroughs. For it was in those sleepless, fearful nights that I prayed to the Parenting God: "OK, I get it. I have no idea what I'm doing here, but maybe you do. After all, you created this creature, so maybe you have some ideas on how to do this?" And so, my parenting philosophy began taking form with the idea much like a rental car ageement. My initial hope was that I could offer him back to the Universe in much the same way in which I received him, with as few knocks and dents in him as possible. I know it may sound crass to compare one's child to a 4-door sedan, but such was my emotional maturity at the time.

What I want to say to that young father is that no book, no magazine article, no TV talk show, no friend or mentor can ever prepare you for the experience of seeing your own little creation thumb their nose at you, reject your values, laugh at your experiences and then create a card for you that says, "Mom you're the most amazing person in the world." Nothing can prepare you for the day when you see your kid take his first step into a school building knowing that this is a dress rehearsal for that day when he walks into his own life and out of yours.

What I want to say to that young father is that nothing can prepare you for that joy of seeing your kid push through a tough class at ashool or to do the right thing when the odds are stacked against him. There is no more reassurance that the world is in good hands than when you see your kid reach out to a kid that no one else will talk to in the lunch line, knowing that you probably wouldn't have been so charitable. There are no words that bring more comfort than to hear him yell from the kitchen, "Mom, I'm home." after you waited up all night for him to do so.

What I want to say that young father is that there is no exhaustion like laboring through nights of fevers, of girlfriend break-ups and get-back-togethers. There is no disappointment like seeing the crestfallen look in his eyes when he doesn't make the team or get the job or when the girl doesn't call back.

What I'd say to that young man is to be prepared. Some day, you'll act like a raving lunatic on the soccer or basketball field when your kid makes a winning shot and you'll cry your own deep tears when he doesn't. I'd tell that new dad that you'll spend hours planning a ski vacation that your kid will spend sitting near the TV most of the time, complaining about the XBox being "lame" or comment that the HBO lacks visual acuity.

As I thought all these things, I watched the librarian point this young father in the right direction and I watched him fairly leap towards the set of books in which she directed. It was all I could to keep myself from saying, "Just experience it. Love them. Lead them and then, let them go."