“Oh shit, I’m a dad”; things I wish someone told me, and my kid’s mum

Whenever I’m asked to describe being a new dad to someone who is not, I now get why people couldn’t translate the experience. Basically like trying to describe the flavor of steak to a lifelong vegan.

Being a newborn dad is sharp identity break, a test to all your beliefs about your capacity, and an added motivation to not give in to your fear-based impulses.

Here’s what I wish I knew below; practical things and ‘spiritual’ things.

1. “Safe Week” is bullshit.

I had long heard the tales of a week during a lady’s cycle where pregnancy would not be possible.

Turns out it’s bullshit.

Myself, and a friend who believed the same myth both ended up with pregnant girlfriends. Apparently, your sperm can cling to the walls like Alex f*cking Honnold casually scaling a mountain. And indeed mine did.

Also, your girlfriend can ovulate twice during pregnancy to trick you into safety even more. Amazing what fuckery our bodies are capable of.

2. Breastfeeding is way harder than the TV told us
Women got screwed on the expectations and reality of breast feeding.

Consider this : breast milk is made from blood. Nobody told me this. So aside from making us vampires for the cuter part of our lives, this means your kid’s mum is transforming their blood into food for your spawn. \m/etal, yes, but also can you imagine how draining that might be?

The 2500 calorie requirement for breastfeeding women makes a lot more sense with this in mind.

On top of this, societal shame has seemingly caused women to not discuss how hard it is to breastfeed as a regular practice. Imagine my surprise when on exploration, female friends were sharing how hard it was for them to breastfeed and the internal struggle of trying to give their best to their kids while also feeling utterly shattered and doing the dance of managing health, sanity, nipple pain-receptors and the sleep cycle hell of 2-3 hour feeding around the clock. Oh… and crushing shame and failure if they couldn’t actually breast feed and had to go to formula.

It is savagery and madness. And utterly insane that women are pressured to engage this AND within the present societal construct. The destruction of the tribe is the root of this and “it takes a village” is literal.

If you have the coin, get the Spectra milking machine. It seems to be universally understood as the best machine for milking the boobs for stored up bottle feeds so mum can get extra sleep while still giving baby mum-milk benefits.

in some cities, there are organizations that donate breast milk and supply data for what the mother’s diet is for those who desire that info. This has largely assisted gay couples, but is also utilized for mothers struggling with the feeds.

3. Learn to do things with one hand
Especially if you’re a work from home dad, with a work from home mum. You might need to invest in cooking gadgets that can replace two handed activities like chopping ingredients. It is quite a challenge to slice a thing in half if you can’t hold it in place with the other hand. You’ll likely be carrying a baby a lot unless you have live-in help, which financially is challenging for most living in a Western city.

4. This was not meant to be a 2-person job

Specifically in this societal construct, we have been extracted from the tribal-style of living. In the mediterranean, families live in almost compound-like housing situations. Grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins all a stone’s throw away.

In Lakota traditions, the families and extended members are all considered the parents of the kid. The tribe raises the kid. Aside from the richness of connection a kid gains, imagine the pacing the biological parents receive!

Imagine having to care for a small and adorable human who is 100% dependent on you and can’t move or feed themselves.

Add financial challenge through societal economic pulleys and levers and managing the cycle of money in and out, mental and physical health and being at your absolute best for a tiny human.

All those dim ‘journalists churning’ out stories of “Why aren’t Millennials having kids” need a sharp slap. Also a kick in a groin area.

5. You absolutely will not be able to succeed without embracing change

And that includes the kind you don’t want. Not just life, but chiefly identity.

Like any big change, ‘ego death’ of rather, identity recalibration and maturing is needed to step into it. It doesn’t matter how many Ayahuascas or Ibogaines you’ve sat, how many toads you’ve smoked or otherwise.

You can’t prepare to the point of removing challenges, or optimization of pure smooth sailing. Some will be able to throw money at many of the challenges, but even the wealthiest and most generous folks I know have been crushed and reborn through this process - the ones that stuck it through anyway.

Those challenges will come, and they will be confronting. They will reshape your idea of balance, priority and responsibility. And you are likely to have your capacity challenged and stretched. Your definition of ‘tired’ re-shaped too.

If you suck at responsibility, you will be confronted as you learn very directly, how not to be. Oddly, the healthy kind of pressure a new kid can bring will sharpen your ability to prioritize through the presence of urgency.

I am still in this process (our girl is nearly 5 months) and it doesn’t seem to be letting up.

6. Women in a traditional setup truly get the short end of this stick

This instagram lady wrote a whole piece on it - a short version on instagram, and a long version on her substack.

They have way less freedom to give up or escape. As the every 2-3 hour boob feeding meat machine with crap sleep, they are essentially pinned to a schedule, and worse - left completely uninformed of the level of capacity and presence required to pull off motherhood.

Society appears to have formed into a large con-job towards the family unit, extracted from the safety and ease of the tribe, to an isolated unit struggling not only to balance rough sleep with sanity and love, but also the safety of shelter and food.

Worse; single mums in cities are basically the hardest working, grinding, body-strained humans on the planet, with little support available to them with what capacity they reasonably have to work with. Thoroughly FUCK this society for that shortfall.

While - in heteronormative couples - we men are usually in the struggle of providing per classical norms, our bodies are not demanded of in the way women’s bodies are here and it’s enormously helpful to know what those realities are, so you can be prepared to extend your capacity in supporting that if you can’t financially provide additional help.

7. And what of providing?

And despite what decades of societal bullshit says, there’s no shame in the struggle of providing - and yes, that’s been a tough one for me too, particularly in the jarring move from Mexico and Europe back to Los Angeles, which has double the living costs and then some.

Life has gotten more costly for many by way of obvious societal engineering. This creates very real circumstances that can easily convince us into believing we are screwed, unable to provide for ourselves and are ultimately powerless to change our fates.

While part of the practical cure is to build and foster community NOW, the other part is to train the mind to see beyond the evidence and show it what wealth does exist in your life. This is not to gaslight, but to stop the negative momentum of the visible circumstances and re-root into seeing and amplifying what you do want in your life.

Countless scientific studies are now proving this is a real phenomenon, confirming ancient wisdom around reality being rendered from your felt internal state.

Anyway - that tangent was essential, as to provide at this particular time, in the daftest conditions we could’ve created for ourselves as a species, for something so deserving as a tiny innocent human baby… it’s a stressful undertaking mentally and emotionally and a lot will come up.

Best thing that’s worked for me is to be honest about it with myself, catch shame before it blossoms into a poison and do my best to provide in other ways where the finances don’t meet the demand.

There’s more but I’ll save it for another post.

Any new dads - this pile of text won’t prepare you for being a dad, but it’ll give you some useful bits to be aware of that I wish I knew. May it serve you well.