CHRIS-A while ago I wrote imploring my fella IF bros to man up and get their man nectar evaluated to see if there was a possibility that cross-eyed chromosomal tadpoles were contributing to their difficulties in having a child (see blog here) I’m not going to talk about that again, although I think all of us that had that amazing opportunity should reflect back on that special moment in the clinical setting with the sticky-paged Hustler corralling our sperm for such a noble cause … alright, reflection over. This post is about our subconscious, totally unfounded fear of that four letter word B-A-B-Y.
Weird right that on a blog about infertility and all things encouraging family building that we would post about fearing babies, but it’s true. Dudes, especially dudes that have never had a child, have a fear of babies. What’s the line, “Naw, I don’t want to hold little Jeb, I’m afraid I’m going to break him.” I’ve said it. I’ve felt it. I believed it was true. Oh sure, I could arm wrestle a shark; since they don’t have arms, I would definitely win, a.k.a. babe magnet! I could push a redwood over or pull a tractor trailer out of a ditch with my bare hands. But hold an infant, forget it. You think I can control all these bulging man muscles with something so delicate?! No way. Give me an alligator with IBS and a tooth ache and we can talk. But a baby? Are you crazy?
Thing is, we (us guy-folk) do this to ourselves. Somehow, we need to make sure to assert our masculinity and therefore, doing things like holding babies gingerly and cooing and swaying with them, well, that is a threat to our very fragile man card. Just. Can’t. Be. Done. Period. (Too many periods?) Something funny happens though when you work so effing hard for a family. You drop the charade, the ‘if I hold a baby and act like I enjoy it I am somehow lesser dudely.’ Same is true for changing diapers, cleaning spit-up, and waking up in the middle of the night. You know, the woman’s work. Now, don’t get me wrong. I have not pushed Candace out of the way at 2 AM to feed our little Jelly Bean. But I will be damned if I am going to hand Jelly Bean over to Candace just because she is fussy or she (Jelly Bean not Candace) has had a catastrophic digestive incident in her diaper. I worked too hard and too long to let my genetically prescribed masculinity from preventing me from experiencing all that I can with our little one.
Don’t misunderstand me, I did not run up to infants prior to our little one demanding that I hold this unknown baby. I didn’t break into the family bathrooms at the mall in the hopes that there was a diaper change going on in there. Actually, I acted totally like the stereotypical fella I described above. I never changed a diaper until it was our little one’s. Guys, simply stated, I wasn’t brave enough. I missed out on enjoying the early stages of several of my family members because I wanted to convince myself I was too much of a man to be able to handle such things. Although IF is riddled with vagaries and obscurity, I hope that it can elucidate your desire to be a father and encourage you to be an awesome uncle, brother, god-father, whatever, while you are still questing for the family you pray for.
I laughed so hard I cried! Such a great read!