My Fatherhood Reading List

We're now a few weeks into the great second trimester of our pregnancy. And by "our" I mean Christina's. As much as I try to be supportive there's just not a whole lot I can do to make anything easier other than feel slightly guilty.

Christina: "I feel so nauseous."
Me: "Yeah...that sucks..."

Aside from just trying to keep things relatively clean around the house and making the occasional helpful baby name suggestion (Zagathor did not make the cut) I've been doing a lot of reading. You may not know this but  there are quite a few books on parenting. For those of you who have seen "baby" sections of book stores, you know there is a giant sarcasm sign flashing above my head.

See?

Someone, somewhere, at some point once said that babies don't come with an instruction manual. If that's the case, then what the heck have I been reading over the past 18 weeks? I started with something pretty basic: What to Expect When You're Expecting. Among other things, I learned that there must be an international law somewhere out there that says you may only compare your preterm baby size to some piece of produce. "Your baby is now the size of a grape! Your baby is now the size of an apple! Your baby is now the size of a green pepper! Your baby is now the size of the great pumpkin! By the way, you should probably get that checked out..."

What to Expect is actually insanely thorough. There are about 500 pages on nutrition for an expectant mother, all of which I as the father may ignore with no negative effect on the baby's health...although again, it makes me profoundly guilty. It's also insanely thorough on everything that can go wrong with your baby's development, some of which is scary enough to replace my nightmares of 24/7 Kardashian marathons replacing ESPN's current programming. I solved that problem though. I quit reading.

NOOOOOO!!!!

From there I began meandering around the Internet and reading up on what Christina and I should begin doing to prepare for baby time. Some of it is a bit morbid (making a will). Some is a bit more fun (painting the nursery). And the vast majority of the rest is just expensive. Do you know how much a stroller costs these days? Personally, I was starting to think we could take the Harry Potter route and just keep him or her in a cupboard instead of taking the child outside. Ya ain't North West, kid. I'm kidding of course. I'm not cruel enough to keep a baby in a cupboard. Besides, Christina wouldn't let me. So we got the stroller. Two strollers, in fact. One for us and one for our in-laws. I'm hoping they will motivate me to get up and actually walk a bit more than I am right now. Which is a number somewhere in the neighborhood of zero.

From the Internet I moved on to two separate books on fatherhood: Bill Cosby's Fatherhood and Jim Gaffigan's Dad is Fat. I love Cosby but Gaffigan's book blows it out of the water. For those of you who don't know, Gaffigan is the comedian who has the "Hot Pocket" routine. What I never realized in watching his standup (which is largely about being a lazy slob) is that he's actually a pretty big family man. And I don't just mean big as in "physically large." The guy has five kids. Five. As in four more than I will have in four months. Holy crap I only have four months left. Thanks a lot, blog, for reminding me.

He writes a lot about how the dad is a bit superflous during the whole pregnancy. In one of his best essays he talks about how being the "birth coach" to him is really just a nice way to make the father feel involved: "I'll just stand here in the corner and take pictures." It's morbid humor but it's funny. He even writes about the process of cutting the umbilical cord but, "You can't screw this up. The wouldn't let you do it if you could."

I think what appealed to me most about the book wasn't just the humor. The book was hilarious, don't get me wrong, but throughout the entire thing is an undercurrent of genuine love for his kids and a tentative fear that he's not being as good of a father as he could be. He worries that his kids are going to grow up hating him. He worries that show business will make life difficult for them in ways they aren't for other children. Despite that worry though, he's almost defensive about his worry and his mistakes. He absolutely hates getting unsolicited child advice from other people because it suggests his effort and love and common sense is not enough. What becomes clear though is that it definitely IS enough. He works hard at his job, he spends quality time with his children, he supports his wife, and his family adores him for it. I know that's a lot to do, and the effort involved will be staggering, but just the feeling and the comfort of knowing that the important part is the effort and the process involved has done worlds for any anxiety I've had.

Right. Now, back to searching for zombie children's books on Amazon.