When Amara was born, I had what is commonly called the Dunning-Kruger Effect. I had an inflated view of my skills as a father. And it took less than a day to shatter this implicit blind spot.
The mother was in a different plane and was unsurprisingly vocal about the things that we did not know we didn’t know (about 90% of the things to know with a baby).
In the interest of being succinct, here are some nuggets of misconceptions I had before the little girl took over our lives.
- The baby will have to adopt to my lifestyle, and not the other way around
- Once the dust settles, and the baby is a few weeks old, we can all go back to the way we were
- Parents who struggle, and always seem sleepy, are only bein inefficient about parenting
- With sufficient research, knowledge, and training, we can lead an active social life
- Customs are good, so far as they are convenient. We can tell our parents that and survive
- Folks who fuss over their kids, are being hypochondriac
- Fussy babies are just the long tail of newborns. On average, babies like to cuddle, smile, sleep, and eat
- When people ask me – What kind of father you will be, I know the answer. I am just going to be, well, me
And the list goes on.
A friend described the feeling of becoming a parent thus – it’s as if you have entered a different plane of existence, one that was locked and hidden for you behind an invisible wall. This plane has a whole new dimension of selfless and unconditional love that you did not know existed before.
It’s an unaccustomed feeling, this parenthood. For both Upadhi and me, it has been as much a learning experience as it has been exhilarating.
My intention on this page here is to document what we have learnt so far, understand what we need to learn going forward, and record for posterity what we have been experiencing.
As another friend said – with parenting, everyday is a new day, and it brings with it a fresh set of challenges and goals. Each stage of the kid’s growth years is going to mean different things for us to take care of, fuss about, read about, get anxious about, and worry about. But this journey, it’s one that has the imprints of eons of evolution. So we’ll take it day by day, and experience the richness of stories that it inks in its wake.
Buckle up if you are in for the ride. 🙂
Jargogled Impressions. 