Some expectant, first-time dads might relish the prospect of sitting down with Junior and imparting the wisdom of the ages.
These men have a right to their enthusiasm. But they need to understand something important: Before they begin working on the thatching and strengthening of moral fiber, before they deliver sermons on fiscal prudence and upright sportsmanship, they first must stand there, confused, startled, occasionally lost to panic.
Playing dad to an infant involves skills that don’t always come naturally to men. There is no channeling of common sense between father and child. There is no setting of boundaries, no series of lectures about the importance of diligence. Instead, there is a vexing, shrieking, inconsolable, clinging little person, deaf to reason, incapable of understanding, swollen with demands. And there is the child’s burdened, tired, tense mother, whose role seems to arrive the instant the child enters the world.
For men during this period, “it’s all responsibilities and no power. Taxation without representation,” said Michael Lewis, author of the new book “Home Game” (W.W. Norton & Co., $23.95), which is about his experiences helping to raise three young children. “Beyond keeping the thing alive, by far the biggest task is keeping the wife happy. It has nothing to do with fatherhood. It’s more about domestic political management.”
The arrangement, he said, made him feel “ticked off.”
As Lewis pointed out in a phone interview, much discussion about fathers hinges on things like fatherly wisdom, on roles dads can assume in the lives of their children.
The conversation rarely, however, touches on those long, sleepless months of infanthood, what he calls something like “the fog of war.” Mothers and babies cling to each other during these months. Women who breast feed provide all of the child’s nourishment. Many times, they form a bond during these months that fathers do not share.
They are expected, however, to do something.
And this, Lewis said, is the result of social pressures that did not exist a generation ago, when fathers were expected to remain largely out of the picture — no diaper-changing, no bottle- feeding, no cradling babies in laps and rocking back and forth and singing nursery rhymes — until one day they would rise from their evening newspapers and begin their roles as wisdom dispensaries.
“It’s not natural” for men to attempt to simulate the care mothers bestow upon infants, he said. “We are little lab rats in this social experiment. Nobody puts a fine point on it because it devolves into arguments, but it’s a new experiment about what the role of the father should be.”
Stapleton dad Griffith Kundahl figured out his role quickly.
“I found I was good at night duty,” said Kundahl, 44, the father of three kids, ages 6, 4 and 1. “I have the ability to wake up and fall asleep on a dime without getting too bent out of shape about it. Anytime the baby would cry, I was the first up and out and dealing with it.”
Echoing Lewis, he said his job had more to do with giving his wife a break than with some innate desire on his part, or some biological compulsion (he never rose at 2:17 a.m. to a screaming infant and said to himself, “I’m born to do this!”).
Another just-released book, “Pacify Me,” by Chris Mancini (Simon Spotlight Entertainment, $14.99), wades through similar dad-infant territory.
Mancini said it’s important for new fathers to relax, even though it’s normal to feel “freaked out.”
“You will rise to the occasion,” he said. “The difficulty level of taking care of an infant isn’t that bad. What is hard is the lack of sleep and the lack of any schedule for the first year. It’s eat, change diapers, sleep. It takes up 24 hours a day, but it’s really those three things.”
The roles of mother and father in the early years have blurred, he said. Some things, though, remain the same.
Mothers of young children, he said, have more patience. When a child vomits in the car, for example, it’s the mothers who intuit the proper response.
“When your child throws up in the car, your wife’s first thought is, ‘Oh, my baby!’ ” he said. “A guy’s first thought is, ‘Oh my God, my car!’ ”
Douglas Brown: 303-954-1395 or djbrown@denverpost.com
