Equilibrium

When you become a parent, it’s a big change.  Your relationships to society, your spouse, and your self are all subject to the interposition of this thing shaped like a humanoid but that’s really part of your soul that’s bulging out.  It’s disorienting, and cool, and lovely, and interesting as hell.

 

You’re adaptable, though, and pretty soon your normal equilibratoritiness smooths you out.  You get habituated to being a parent.  You develop a range of solutions; you avoid unnecessary challenges; you figure out a way of handling things in your own mind.  It’s not disorienting anymore; it’s only a little bit cool, sometimes lovely, and interesting if you think about it.  You get kind of fat.  Change doesn’t pitch you over anymore; it’s incremental; except that sudden change is something you associate with accident, sudden illness, or midlife crisis-style misjudgment.

 

That’s where Beeb and I are now.  Being Sweet Potato’s parents today is sort of different from being Sweet Potato’s parents a year ago … but not really.  It’s still important to us, and even marvelous, but it’s important or marvelous or lovely or interesting in the same way we were used to before. 

 

This is why parents only have friends who are other parents.  It’s a community that presumes stasis, that relies on inertia.  It’s amazing how quickly they don’t grow up.  This is also why it’s hard to craft very many light entertainments in the form of blog posts about parenting.  I was about to tell you about Sweet Potato’s months-long obsession with her tutus and ballerinas and princesses, but got bogged down in my own disdain and exasperation with the princess thing, but it’s really my exasperation with the gross (large) routine of it all.  My own habits have desensitized me to the things that are interesting about being Sweet Potato’s dad (and Beeb’s husband).

Comments

[mike]

ah, yes, you are mired in that time of parenthood which i guess resulted in me not being a parent, when it goes on and on and on. When they are little they change so quickly. When they are about to go to college they are super exasperating but between wanting to get rid of them for a while and realizing that it also means having to fill a void in your life real soon, they seem to become precious again. But in between there's a lot of process. Must be like writing a novel. You have a great idea, lots of inspiration, characters come into your head...then you have to do it....grind through chapters...revise and edit...until you get a head of steam again. Lest that sound too depressing, i observe from my parenting siblings that they are outbursts of appreciation and job regularly along the way. And you start to pull in other dimensions of your life again since the child can no longer realistically be the super-focus all the time. In other words, you love them but keep them in a little more perspective. Maybe, what do I know!