Parenthood warps your brain.
We're a little over years into raising our son and we've got about four months to go before our daughter arrives (Holy haddock! Only four months!), but I already recognize a whole slew of ways in which my perception of the world and my reaction to it has changed. And these are just the tidbits that I see in myself. I think it would take an objective full-life audit to list all the changes.
The rhythmic wailing of a tiny baby acts like a drug on my system: my stomach tightens, my ears prick. It takes me a moment to remind myself that the little one isn't mine.
Having a child routes some new cabling from your eyes to chest. Guys are used to this sight-response hardwiring, except the endpoint is our gonads. A hetero male sees some inspirational female strolling by and, zing, all higher centers of the brain are bypassed. Most non-Neanderthal men are able to wrestle the urge to the mat before a catcall escapes. Some men are skilled enough to divert their attention and feign nonchalance. Still fewer men are deluded enough to believe that their wives didn't see the whole thing.
Having a kid has done just this sort of brain bypass for my wife and me. The times we most notice it are when watching movies. For example, during the pirate attack on the town in Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, there's a split second shot of a toddler amidst the chaos, crying for his mother. Both my wife and I instantly felt a parental pang and were relieved a second later as the child was scooped up.
Some low-life assassinates an entire family for money, including an 18-month-old boy. A three-year-old girl is gang raped by HIV-positive African men because they hope that having sex with a virgin will rid their bodies of the virus. A five-year-old boy has half an arm because it was hacked off with a machete during an attempt at ethnic cleansing. In the past, such things might have started me musing on human nature. Nowadays, I have to contend with a roiling storm of thoughts and emotions.
We have the luxury of grandparents nearby, so every once in a while, my wife and I get some time to ourselves. For our anniversary this year, we left the dude at Grandma and Grandpa's and scooted off for a romantic dinner. We didn't have any candles at the table and, honestly, how "romantic" could Stuart Anderson's Black Angus every truly be? Any restaurant with rough-sawn planks as paneling on the walls, a sports bar, and titanic hunks of cow as their specialty isn't the sort of place to sweep someone off their feet. No, what made it romantic for this old, married couple was getting out on our own, languidly eating through several courses (including a "bonus" chunk of beef for agreeing to participate in a survey), and enjoying each other over a leisurely three-hour dinner. Of course, as we were driving out to the place, we both experienced "phantom kid syndrome." You spy a garbage truck and, with the baby words "ich bap" on your tongue, you turn behind you to find an empty car seat. After a moment of mental vertigo, you remember that the little guy isn't in the car. On the nights that he spends with his grandparents, I'll find myself stalking quietly past the door to his room, his empty room. You and your child just spend so much time together that they're a deeply ingrained habit, like when you take your watch off at the pool, forget it in your bag, and then spend the rest of the day glancing at the hairs on your wrist.
I am Chief Sniff Tester.
I've developed a practical attitude towards poopy diapers.
I now run when I lose sight of my son as he rounds an aisle in a store. This is after he was found wandering through the parking lot at the Best Buy as my wife and I frantically searched for him in the store.
I have a lot more patience for parents with kids who appear to be having a meltdown.
Having a little guy obviously happy to see me lifts much of the black stain from my soul after a crappy day at work.
So that's a quick list off the top of my head. I can't help but wonder how having a daughter is going to distort me further.
Pakeha