A DAD'S LIFE:The birth of a child brings new possibilities for your life, writes ADAM BROPHY
PARENTING OFFERS many benefits. For the majority of us, it happens at a time when we’re not making many new friends. We’ve finished school or college, settled in a job, seeing the same old faces for years on a Saturday night. We’re wondering how to shake it up a little, then along comes baby and a whole new world opens up.
There is also the benefit of the children themselves. They’re nice to have around. They remind us that no matter how badly we’ve messed up, we can always land our unfulfilled hopes and dreams on their shoulders. In the circle of disappointed life, your children make the slide into melancholia bearable. And we should be thankful to them for that.
But far more important is who they can introduce you to. From the moment they’re born, they’re opening doors. You’ve got, for example, the couple you met in the maternity ward. What stronger bond to forge a new friendship with than the fact that your children were born on the same day? You can hang stories on that for years to come. Include some delivery room gore and staff shortage crisis event and you have a “shared experience” buddy story to take you through to retirement.
Once out in the world all you’ve got to do is stick that newborn in a buggy and head to the park to see how hugely your social sphere is about to be affected. Where once you skipped by playgrounds before someone whipped out their mobile to report the shifty geezer, you now come to realise that the swings and slides are not just the kids’ play area. For the foreseeable future, they’re yours too.
Playground bonding is vital. Finding people at the exact same stage as you in the baby rearing process can be lifesaving. Discovering other people experience primal breakdowns following days and weeks of sleep deprivation too can ease guilt. Finding other parents who turn to MTV as a kaleidoscopic distraction for their toddler provides a solid bedrock of shared values for a future relationship. These people will always have kids the same age as yours. They may turn out to be a lifelong support, as you could be to them. Embrace the playground opportunity.
Where other parent “new” friend opportunities come into their own, however, is when you hit school. Stepping into the yard for the first time can be a hurdle for many nippers, as it can for first-time parents. Where they have their little comrades to help them along, and a doting, soothing junior infants teacher to quell their worries, you have to swagger into that playground with an air of assured parental wisdom. A swagger you surely don’t possess but, as Louis Walsh might say: “You have to own it.” It being the playground, of course.
At drop-off and pick-up times you’ll make new buds. Some will slide away as the realisation hits that, even though you do have kids in the same class, you are oil to their water. But others will keep and as that bond develops you’ll grow to look forward to the schoolyard, the bit of banter, a little slagging, a shared appreciation for the hot mums. You roll in there, and in a somewhat reviving way, it rolls back the years. The schoolyard keeps you young.
The schoolyard also reminds you of a crucial factor in parenting circles: no two people parent the exact same. We are all special little snowflake parents. Just when you think you’ve got someone pigeon-holed down to the nth degree they’ll shock you with a particular opinion on education or discipline and you’ll have to re-evaluate your whole world view. Pacifists become fascists and militants prove themselves daddy softies.
This is what makes the fellow parent friendship so good. It slips and twists like mercury. Unlike the friendship founded in the college bar or the workplace, you’re never quite sure where you stand in this one. Even though we can receive fantastic support from parenting friends, you can be sure some aspect of the way you raise your children will shock them, some aspect that you’ve probably given zero consideration to. And you will find something equally mind-boggling in their approach.
This works. It works because you get to meet good people. It works because you realise that other people’s approaches often directly contradict yours and their kids still grow up to be joyful, vivacious, wonderful creatures. It works because you see that your chosen path may not be that important after all. As long as you can still hang out, and not be too hard on yourself.