Editing Blog/2025-03-12/Fatherhood

[[File:{{#setmainimage:Roshan walking Astra.webp}}|thumb|Contrary to most SF strollers, this one contains a baby, not a dog.]]
{{Quote
 |text=There's phases to life. When it's time to move on to the next thing, it's time. Holding on to the life you have is pointless.
 |author=Charles Giardina<ref name=officiant/>
 |source=At Armaan's bachelor party<ref name=cg/>
}}

One thing I think I'm particularly good at is taking the advice of my friends. This is fortunate because one thing I'm bad at is realizing when it's time for a new phase. After Armaan's bachelor party, I went home and told [[Julie Yu Kang|Julie]] - who I'd known for over a decade and lived with for a few years already - that she had to be my girlfriend<ref name=gf/> because that's what I'd told everyone<ref name=lr/>. 8 months later we were married. And a year and a half later [[Pregnancy|we have a daughter together]].

One constant in my life is [[Those Who Remember History Are Doomed To Relive It|experiencing events differently from how other people describe experiencing them]]. So I assumed having a child would be the same. Of course, I love her as any parent does. But what I wasn't prepared for was the overwhelming degree to which I feel the need to orient my life around her happiness. The wild pride I've seen other parents show at even the smallest of their children's achievements? I have that now, too<ref name=annak/>. I feel joy at seeing her stretch her legs, or yawn, or grab my finger.

I have never felt unloved by my parents, but I did not know the degree of it. And now I have some small measure. I feel changed by the experience<ref name=changed/>. I drive in Subaru's I-mode rather than S-mode and stay in the more right-hand lanes of the freeway. I am more careful crossing streets and less polarized by sports<ref name=gunners/>.

Every older person told me to enjoy my childhood when I was little. I'd nod and run off to play, and I never recognized the time that would be the last. Enjoying childhood is something you do in itself, not in relation to adulthood which you haven't even seen yet. It is like that with parenthood: you experience it from parents, but in an abstracted way. Their emotions do not transfer themselves to you in their full sensation.

It isn't just emotion. All things perhaps are hard to communicate like this. Famously,  [http://habitatchronicles.com/2004/04/you-cant-tell-people-anything/ You Can't Tell People Anything]. So out there are all these things that you just have to do to know. You can't know whether you'll like it till you do it. And then there's no going back.

For the most part, I am not upset that it is at this stage in my life that I am a parent. Julie and I are fairly well-established in our careers. We're comfortable financially. Our age and time together has made us mellow and communicative in our interactions with each other. All these things will hopefully last, and lead to a pleasant childhood for our daughter.

But having now held this little girl in my lap, I can't imagine delaying this a day. Yet I did delay, and now I can't imagine why. There is something about these strong emotions that is hard to communicate. Grief at the loss of a family member, joy at the birth of another. But also there is just an aspect of the unknown that is not communicable. You have to discover it in the doing. And I might have continued, unknowing and undiscovering.

If not for the fortunate fact that I'm pretty good at taking the advice of my friends.

== Notes ==

<references>
<ref name=officiant>
Who would end up being the officiant at our wedding
</ref>
<ref name=cg>
We asked him if he and his wife were expecting, and then he told us how they decided it was time.
</ref>
<ref name=gf>
Shortly after Charles said what I've quoted, he asked me if Julie and I were dating. Put on the spot, I said we were and had been since January. This was the last in a long line of similar questions from our friends, starting months earlier with Shreyas.
</ref>
<ref name=lr>
The majority of them have known her for longer than they've known me because we all met at LiveRamp where we worked for many years.
</ref>
<ref name=annak>
Anna Karenina by Tolstoy starts "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.". Perhaps it's true. Parenthood removes the lower-amplitude higher-frequency terms  and gives us a common form of joy: uniform to all.
</ref>
<ref name=gunners>
I'm an Arsenal fan (a gooner, a name otherwise appropriated these days) and Julie will tell you that on a match-day, my mood can fluctuate based on how we do. Arteta's hand at the reins has been good.
</ref>
<ref name=changed>
A thing I've always wondered about is what the influence of parenthood is on society. Parents are naturally more risk-averse than single people, particularly single men. So a society of mostly parents should be safer, ''ceteris paribus''. Japan is much safer than the US, and has a much higher childlessness rate, however, so that puts paid to that theory according to 
{{cite report
 | title        = Society at a Glance 2024
 | publisher    = OECD Publishing
 | year         = 2024
 | url          = https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/reports/2024/06/society-at-a-glance-2024_08001b73/918d8db3-en.pdf
 | page         = 11
}}
</ref>
</references>

[[Category:Blog]]