Day 153: Higher Education

Mary and I started investigating some of the pregnancy-related classes being offered at Mass General. Two of them seem particularly valuable:

• Childbirth Preparation Class
• Infant Care Class

The childbirth prep class is offered in a number of different configurations... one night a week for five weeks; all in one day; two consecutive weekend days. Whichever you choose, it's a minimum of eight hours, and the weekend-long session is a total of 12 hours.

The infant care class lasts three hours.

Is it just me, or is that backwards? I know childbirth is a long, painful, complicated process... but it is something that happens of its own accord - probably successfully - regardless of the mother's (to say nothing of father's) level of preparation.

Care of a newborn infant, on the other hand, seems like a topic which could fill days' worth of classes. What am I missing? Could this be a supply and demand problem? Are people confident in their ability to care for a baby, but frightened of childbirth? What's going on here?

Day 151: Captive Audience

I think we have an athlete on our hands. Apparently the baby is extremely active. We don't know if he's more or less active than normal, but Mary can feel him moving around in there hourly. I've been able to feel him punching and kicking, too. According to Mary, it can be distracting. And surprising.

We read somewhere that the baby has been capable of sensing light and sound for a long time now, and that lower pitched tones are more audible inside the womb than higher ones. So my melodious baritone voice, especially when applied directly to the abdomen, should get through loud and clear.

So what did I say to him, after Mary was taken by surprise by a sudden acrobatic gyration a couple of weeks ago?

"Um... stop flippin' around in there, you crazy kid!"

My very first words to this child were to STOP doing something? I didn't even mean it. Where did it come from? Is this an instinct? Is it learned? Certainly my dad spent a lot of time telling me to stop doing this, or to do this instead, or settle down, or do something different. Is this the parental legacy I've been left!? Essentially, the best I can do is "hey, quit it!".

Since then I've been more careful with what I say. I want to be sure I don't say anything negative, or at least nothing unnecessarily negative, and of course there's no need for negativity while he's still in utero. Don't worry, I'm not new-age enough to believe the fetus can understand, or pick up on my energy or whatever... I don't avoid negatively for the kid's sake, but rather as practice for myself.

So there I am, faced with a captive audience. I'm armed with a voice, and Mary patiently waiting for me to speak wisdom. I realize I have nothing interesting to say. No wisdom, no advice. Just "hello in there" and the like. It's a rare thing that a child goes to a parent for words of advice. Perhaps even more unusual that the parent has something meaningful to say. Hope I'm ready when/if the time comes, because I'm clearly not ready now.

Day 142: Crimluck

When I was kid I invented word, which I only ever applied to my father. If he sent me to bed at an inopportune time, or forced me to interrupt play for work, or implored me to spend more time on a homework assignment - anything reasonable, responsible, parental, I used to say "Dad, don't be such a crimluck!"

Dad had no idea where this word came from, and frankly neither do I. But it was pretty clear what the word meant. I said it with such disgust and disrespect - "crimluck!" - that my dad, sort of uncharacteristically, became demonstrably hurt by my use of it. You have to admit, it sounds dreadful! Eventually the word became too powerful, and created too much pain and confusion. I finally had to stop using it.

On multiple occasions this past weekend I noticed brooding, little kids in the company of their fathers. You know the ones - the boys you see in the park who are totally, tragically embarrassed to be in the company of their dads... staring at the ground as they walk along in mute defeat. I can remember, myself, recognizing the cold, disappointing reality that, in a world of infinite promise and possibility, your father will likely always be exactly the way he is, and always impose the same rigid, disappointing parental authority.

I suppose kids also find it reassuring to know that they have these anchors, who will always be their parents and will never change. I'm sure I did too, on some level, but thinking back on it now, even though I admired and respected and loved my dad, I never forgave him for being so supremely uncool, and for imposing the fact of his stony, immobile uncoolness into the limitless range of otherwise ideal worlds I could imagine possible as I envisioned my future.

And so, as I glimpsed those several sulky, miserable kids this past weekend, I was filled with a desire to never be "that dad", the cause of embarrassment and disappointment, the target of every-son's contempt. However, at the same time, I recognized the futility of such a project. I don't think any amount of desire can prevent a responsible parent from becoming the grim bearer of reality that my father and millions of others have necessarily become.

But it's not just impossible to avoid that fate, I think it's also undesirable... un-American, even! Ours is not a nation which cultivates respect for our parents or our elders. I'd say there's good evidence that honor, reverence for ancestral heritage (especially parents) is in direct conflict with a good many of the cultural traits we value most highly. In our American culture, which prizes individuality and celebrates independence, we need our fathers to be crimlucks. The recognition of the limits of your father's world, the realization of the depth of his uncoolness, is a rite of passage for us. And the inability to escape from his control is an early object lesson for us that authority just sucks.

So I don't want to be the crimluck, but I recognize that it is unavoidable, and that it is my duty, as an American father, to play that role - first to set limits and boundaries as a responsible parent should, and then be deposed bit by bit, in stages, as my son explores worlds of possibility and promise I'll be too out-of-it to imagine.

I wonder how long I'll have before it begins. And I wonder if recognizing the value of the process will make it any less painful.

Day 128: Cowboy Names Revisited

One of the reasons I like the name Emmett, and the reason it's getting any play at all with Mary, is that it's a way for us give the kid a cowboy name that actually works with the surname Faulkner - a feat we had previously thought to be impossible. Emmett Faulkner does work. And you have to admit, it has a certain cowboy flavor to it. We sort of like cowboy names.

Robert Clement Watson is one of my favorite family figures, and well worth honoring. Mary has vetoed Robert as being too common, but we both sort of like the idea of the name Clement Watson Faulkner. So the question is this: is it possible for a boy/man to have the formal first name Clement without eventually being nicknamed Clem? Because where Emmett is a cowboy name that might work, Clem is certainly not. Clem Faulkner? No. And no thanks, even if it did work with Faulkner.

But Mary doesn't worry about it. We're both such active nicknamers, she reasons, that the odds of our not inventing some other permanent nickname for him, through the course of natural events, are virtually nil. Thus, the nickname Clem would be unlikely ever to get started and we need not worry about it.

So, friends, here is the question to you: is it possible to raise a Clement Watson Faulkner without simultaneously raising a "Clem"? Please do comment!

Day 124: And It Shows

Here's a first... someone who didn't know us and didn't have prior knowledge that Mary was pregnant felt safe enough, based on Mary's appearance, to take the plunge and offer congratulations. So it seems Mary now officially looks pregnant. I've thought so for a couple of weeks now, but I guess we're now past the point where one might be afraid of getting it wrong.