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Memoirs of a Gay Dad

*It's difficult to write a memoir about a baby because the baby's personality is inchoate. The baby communicates through his poop, his smiles, his tongue-sticking-out: And that's mainly it. In a baby memoir, the stars need to be: The Nutty Nurse, One's Own Parents (who are now grandparents), One's Husband, One's Own Anxious Mind.

*One's Own Anxious Mind has a prominent role. Notice that Mind. It's crazy! It latches onto a paragraph about SIDS. No one really understands SIDS, so a great deal of the writing about it seems to be hushed speculation. Do not put your baby on his side, because let's say his cognition is impaired in some way, and he doesn't realize he is in danger and that shifting his sleeping position could end that danger, and then, mysteriously, he ends up dead. That's a memorable passage.

*Find yourself awake at three AM, thinking about the pacifier, wondering if the pacifier is in the baby's mouth and obstructing the respiratory process, though didn't someone say that a baby breathes almost strictly through his nose? If you take a trip at Christmas, and the baby stays with his grandparents, will the baby then resent you for the rest of his life? Will judging eyes glare at you? Judging eyes attached to immobile lips?

*One's Anxious Mind suddenly becomes demanding. One found oneself capable of frittering away one's twenties, and much of one's thirties, at trashy movies, and in bookstores. But now that one has a child, what kind of message is one sending? Shouldn't one have more professional achievements to one's name? Is it really OK to read Stephen King's "The Institute," when time is so precious? Would it be better--for everyone!--if The Parent tried to wade through Turgenev?

*Consider Buddhism. Maybe that's the answer. Introduce your baby to Kristin Chenoweth: "A chair is still a chair.....even when there's no one sitting there.....BUT A CHAIR IS NOT A HOUSE! AND A HOUSE IS NOT A HOME!!!!" ....Your baby will stare quietly at the stuffed cartoon mice dangling from his SnugaPuppy. He smiles at the mice; he and the mice are involved in an elaborate, on-going game.

This is life at home.
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  1. Unkie JOctober 16, 2019 at 9:45 AM

    Relax! Babies know way more than we do. It's only as they gradually become aware of the totality of us that their synapses run up against poor/interrupted connections. Joshua will certainly sort it all out...despite us.

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