My First Day as a Father

What am I going to do with a baby?

I always knew I’d wanted to have kids, and had been a very experienced uncle for years, but when the moment of truth was upon us, what would I do with my own child? How would I take care of him? Would he be OK? Would I be OK?

After 9 months of waiting eagerly, suddenly I found myself nervously observing in the operating/delivery room, sitting behind a draped cloth with my wife’s upper body, while doctors and nurses worked their magic scalpels and tools on her midsection. In 10 minutes, the anesthesiologist announced, “it’s a boy”, but I’d never considered otherwise. He was here, I had to be ready. Even if I didn’t think I was.

Are you ready to cut the cord?

I tend to overthink things, especially all of the possibilities of everything that could go wrong. What if I cut the cord too long or too short? What if I couldn’t even cut all the way through it? At that moment, as I watched my son on the table, just minutes old, I knew I had to jump in with both feet. I grabbed the scissors from the nurse and cut the cord swiftly, which freed my son from his only source of life up to that point and suddenly gave me a new one of my own.

We headed to the recovery room where my wife was able to rest for a bit. As adrenaline pumped through my body like a gallon of espresso, I watched this little miracle lay swaddled snugly and started to feel inklings of confidence return despite the enormous uncertainty squarely before me.     

After a while, we were given a room. My wife was understandably exhausted when the nurse came and examined my hours-old son. She asked if I wanted to give him a bath. As I pondered the joyous task, the feelings of doubt returned? How do I even give him a bath? He’s so little; I don’t want to break him.

She reassured me: “They’re hard to break”.  Whether that was true or not, who knows. But she seemed to know what she was doing, and mentioned that she’d been doing it for 20-something years, so I had to let go of my fear once again and literally get my hands dirty to clean my still somewhat goopy child. With each soft swab of the washcloth, he amazed me even more. Before I knew it, he was clean. What now?

“Are you ready to put on his diaper?”

Well, I’d attended the pregnancy class before he was born and strapped one on a plastic baby, knowing it was foolproof. Guess what: so is diapering a real baby. Sure, I may have ripped a couple straps pulling too hard, but my boy was fine. His scrawny little legs dangled out of the Pampers Newborn, a size he fit in for exactly one day. As I watched his body temperature even out after the bath as he lay upon the warming table, I knew he’d be OK. And so would I.

Later that night, as I watched my wife and son sleep in our hospital room, one day in the books, it finally occurred to me, as obvious as it had been all day to our gathered family and friends. I was a father. And had to be ready for whatever was coming next. Looking back, I’d read the baby books before he arrived but there is no parenting book as real, as honest and as true as the one you start to create upon becoming a father. It’s not an easy job and the benefits are crap, literally, but there is nothing better, nor more sleep depriving in life. Seven years, another child and yet another en route later, I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Note: I have partnered with Life of Dad and Pampers for this promotion, but all ideas expressed above are mine and mine alone, for better or worse. I was compensated for this post, but I can assure you it was much less than I’ve spent on Pampers over the last almost-seven years.

Note 2.0: Pampers put together an amazing Father’s Day video, which I know you will want to check out. Spoiler alert: tears are looming that you may not anticipate.

5 Things I Learned about Parenting from Star Wars

Spoiler Alert: There are key Star Wars plot points inside this piece. I shouldn’t need to warn anyone, as the original movies were all released 30+ years ago, so if you haven’t seen them and are shocked by any revelations here, that’s on you.

During both of Mrs. Dude’s pregnancies I received suggestions of must-read pregnancy and parenting books from more than a few people I knew and myriad more that I didn’t. I did explore a couple, partially to pacify those who had shared their recommendations and also, more frequently, to help me fall asleep on those I-can’t-freakin’-do-this pre-delivery sleepless nights.

But there is another source of parenting tips I’ve reflected upon countless times over the last 5+ years since the Little Dude was born. And now, with Father’s Day once again upon us, I want to share with you some of the great parenting dos and don’ts I learned from one of the most infamous movie fathers of all time, Darth Vader.

1) Be present for, and with, your children: As Vader was pretty much a deadbeat dad, albeit for very atypical reasons, his son was lucky to have his old man’s former mentor (aka Obi-Wan Kenobi) looking out for him during his most impressionable period. Sure, being raised on a farm in Tatooine by his father’s stepbrother Owen was probably not nearly as exciting as a childhood spent roaming the Death Star, but Luke received a good education (also from Mr. Kenobi), had a large outdoor area for playtime and ultimately proved to be a high moral character Jedi…despite his father’s best/worst/completely nonexistent efforts.

2) Don’t give your kids trendy names: Luke & Leia were excellent choices given their time and place in history. Context and family history are important, but when selecting names for your children, consider that they are the ones who will have to live with them for the rest of their lives, and it’s got to be difficult to be taken seriously in a professional workplace with a first name like Boba, Qui-Gon or Jar Jar.

3) Support & encourage your children’s interests: Luke was a skilled farmer thanks to his uncle’s tutelage, but he always yearned for something more than a normal (i.e. boring) desert life.  If not for Obi-Wan and Yoda, both of whom were contemporaries of Luke’s father, Luke might not have achieved his true destiny as a Jedi Knight. As it turned out, Luke was probably subconsciously hoping to earn his father’s respect, or at least attention, when he trained to become a skilled Lightsaber user. I doubt either of them anticipated how that one was going to turn out.

If only Vader had used his Lightsaber for dental hygiene instead of evil.

4) Use Your Words: In both The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, father and son Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader were brought together via one-on-one physical combat. They shared a common dearth of quality time together, so it might have behooved them and their nonexistent relationship to air their grievances (i.e. Luke about his abandonment and Vader over his son’s refusal to join the family business and join him over on the Dark Side). When children are not mature enough to fully express themselves as they wish, they often resort to hitting, hair pulling or other physical actions and reactions as a method of communicating a message or getting the response and/or attention they truly crave. “Use Your Words” is teaching them that verbal communication is a more effective method for earning a desired outcome. Had Vader been a stronger communicator with better grasp of his emotions, he might have been able to convince his son to join him in the family business. Does it matter that said business was less than legit? Not really, after all, family is family.

5) Don’t Be a Jerk: Vader sliced his son’s hand off with a Lightsaber AND THEN finally revealed that he was Luke’s father. It’s well known that children learn both positive and negative behaviors from observing their parents’ habits and actions. Vader shouldn’t have been surprised when after forcefully removing Luke’s limb in the heat of battle, that Luke returned a year later and did the same exact thing to him. Darth should have considered the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you’d have them do unto you, which Luke obviously took quite literally.

All of the above being said, the Star Wars saga is about family, relationships and dealing with others you may not see eye to eye with. There will always be issues up for debate (maybe Luke should have listened to his father and joined the Dark Side, with the goal of turning everyone good again?) but maintaining open lines of communication can help clear murky things up. I haven’t shown the Star Wars films to my son yet, but I think he may soon be due. After all, I know I can hardly wait for Part VII, aka The Force Awakens, which will be released later this year, on December 18!. Maybe we’ll find out if Luke settled down and had a family of his own. I’m hoping he taught his own son a lesson or two, unlike his father ever did for him.

Happy Father’s Day and May the Force be with you.

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Disclaimer: I wrote this post as part of my participation in the Fandango Family Digital Network. I was compensated accordingly, but all content and opinions contained within are mine entirely, for better or worse. Come hang with the FF team on Facebook, too. 

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