A Little Something on Having Children

This was originally going to be a post just for my personal blog, but I thought it might fit the occasional reflection on family here at Touchstone:

When I first became a father, I was traumatized by the experience. There was part of me that rebelled in being tied down with such an awesome responsibility. I am thankful to God that he changed my heart and helped me accept the gift of fatherhood.

What I have discovered is that my greatest joys in life, bar none, relate to my children. Getting the right job, having an article published, making a book deal; none of those things compare to the exhilarating happiness I experience as a result of things my children do or say.

For example, I like to give my kids nicknames. My son Andrew can’t stand it. He is very strong on the rules. That means I can only call him Andrew. Not Bigstuff. Not Anderson. Not Handsome. Just Andrew. But little Grace, at age four, takes things a little more easily. We used to call her Baby Grace, then Baby G. Lately, I’ve taken to calling her Gracie-tot or Tabitha the Tot or little Tiger.

Yesterday, I picked her up in my arms and said, “I like to call you nicknames. Is that okay?”

She replied in the happiest little voice you ever heard, “Okay, Daddy. You can call me Pipsqueak. How about that?!!”

My heart melted in a pool of happiness at her goodwill, desire to please, and awesome overall cuteness.

Andrew, by the way, went to a new pediatrician with his mother yesterday. When the doctor asked Ruth whether Andrew was on a multi-vitamin, he precociously beat his mother to the punch by announcing, ” I have vitamins, but I never get to take them because Mom says I’m too late for school and I have to hurry.” He’s big on honesty.

For those of you who CHOOSE to be childless, think twice about it.  It’s true you won’t enjoy restaurants as much and your time won’t be your own.  But the emotional return on watching this little person, who really is part of you, grow up is impossible to duplicate with ski weekends or trips to Mexico.

Comments

[Lee Herring]

Dear Mr. Baker,

Then sometimes, when your children are old enough and the Lord blesses you with enough disposable income to take the occasional ski weekend with the kids, its just icing on the beautifully challenging cake that is fatherhood. Thanks for the post - and the reminder.

Yours, Lee

[W.E.D. Godbold]

Not that I'd urge having children on anyone for any other reason than the joy of having children, but there is an excellent article in the latest FT by the new associate editor (whose name I'm blanking on but who has written anonymously in the Asia Times as Spengler) explaining the whole economic crisis from the perspective of demographics. The problem is essentially a lack of people in western countries. Where are the children who should have been? Do their non-parents know what they missed out on to gain (I'm assuming) a slightly greater degree of financial stability? And look what it cost everybody else...

[Gintas]

Mr. Godbold, I want that name.

[Ethan C.]

Baby G -- is that her rapper name? :)

[gk]

Gintas--

You wrote: "Mr. Godbold, I want that name."

If you mean you want Spengler's name...it is David P. Goldman - I remember back in March I looked at a First Things blog post and it was by-lined "Spenger", and then I went back a few minutes later, and it was changed to "David P. Goldman".

However, the first things blog search feature is not very friendly/effective so it might be hard to find these articles... but I remember reading that article Mr Mr Godbold mentioned above.

If you meant you want to change your name to W.E.D. Godbold, well then I suggest your county courthouse.

[Gintas]

GK, thanks.

[Philippa]

Dear Mr. Baker,

We've been blessed by two who are now in adulthood. They successfully survived our false leads, parenting, and grand errors. This, of course, is God's Mercy and Miraculous Grace at work!

Despite their ages, they still must tolerate our various nicknames. For the 28 y.o. son, he is stuck with "Eeee". For the 23 y.o. daughter, "peanut" and "little chicken (now shortened to 'chick') have stuck like glue. Of course, she still calls me Mama.

I guess the nicknames work both ways.

And may I say, the joy is no less at this age than when they were tots and gave big hugs and sloppy kisses. The hugs and sloppy kisses feel exactly the same way!

[Kristor]

Sooner than you think, if all goes well, young Andrew will be as tall as you, or taller. Just as he is leaving the awkward stage, he will realize that he has handled something the way you would have handled it, and it will make him happy. Then you will know that he admires and respects you. Then you will feel the most profound happiness, humility and insufficiency imaginable. "Lord, he wants to be like me; let him be much better. Let me not disappoint him; help me do always my duty." These will be your thoughts. It will be different with your daughter, yet also the same.

Reality is mental. Just an hour before I read your entry on fatherhood, an acquaintance sent me this:

“I’ve read of other men my age experiencing the same thing -- all men, it seems -- one day becoming themselves, but also their fathers. Just like with other legends, men build the base of themselves with parts of their fathers...and then go on from there, of necessity, to alter other things, grow in new places, and become fathers themselves. And when you are twenty-five or thirty, and the world’s getting smaller, and things are starting to move, finally, like a train slowly leaving the station, picking up a little power, a little speed, that is when, at first, you’re lifted by the bootstraps as you’re going out the door, pretending you are him, doing the right thing, doing what he would do, until, in the end, by rote, you learn it, and just in time."

~Rick Bass, Winter: Notes from Montana

[Hunter Baker]

Philippa, that thing about nicknames going both ways is true. Ruth can't stand it when Grace calls her "Ma."

[Judy K. Warner]

My siblings and I always called our parents Mommy and Daddy, until the days they died, and still refer to them that way with each other. My daughter, age 23, calls me Mama or Mommy and I like that very much.

[W.E.D. Godbold]

As my oldest boys grew they stopped referring to me as "Daddy" and started calling me "Dad" and so now all the younger kids do it as well. I kinda miss "Daddy"--which is how I refer to my own father--at least from the children under 8. In front of the children, my wife still refers to me as "Daddy" and I refer to her as "Mama" or "your mama" (sometimes "your mother").

Thinking about this, I realize that I never refer to my wife by her first name. To do so would almost seem insulting--I use various endearments instead. At one point in my parent's marriage, they started referring to each other by their first names and I think it reflected a deterioration in their relationship.

[Hunter Baker]

Ruth and I call each other by the role we play. If the kids aren't around and we are talking about stuff that doesn't really involve them, then we go with our first names or the endearing nicknames. If the kids are around or we are talking about stuff that involves them, then it's Mommy talking to Daddy.

[Chelie]

I, nearly 50 years of age, still call my father "Daddy". And even cooler is that his grandchildren (my nephews and nieces) call him "Granddaddy"!

[Kristor]

One odd thing my wife and I noticed ourselves doing when our kids were young was referring to ourselves in the third person when talking to them. Instead of saying, "I'll play with you in a moment, I just have to wash these dishes," I'd say, "Daddy will play with you in a moment, he just has to wash these dishes." We fell into this manner of speaking about ourselves without the slightest awareness of having done so. We didn't even notice we were doing it until after we had our second child. After that, we heard many other parents of young children doing the same thing.

I have often wondered if this behavior might be wired in, and whether it has any pedagogical function.

[Hunter Baker]

We do it, too, Kristor. Don't know why. My guess is maybe that you start with babies and early talkers in order to reinforce what they are to call you.

[Michael]

>>We do it, too, Kristor. Don't know why. My guess is maybe that you start with babies and early talkers in order to reinforce what they are to call you.<<

Perhaps it also has to do with an intrinsict recognition of developmental stages in early childhood. Before the child can graduate from primary process thinking, one must reenforce the third person such that the child may recognize that he is not the center of the universe?

[Kristor]

"Before the child can graduate from primary process thinking, one must reenforce the third person such that the child may recognize that he is not the center of the universe?"

Well, that makes sense as an ex post facto interpretation from an extremely sophisticated adult point of view. But that's all it is, right? I'll tell you how it seems to me, from my adventures in babyland. "Babyland" is the place babies and toddlers live. When my children were very very young, and I was with them all day, I would spend much of my day in Babyland. I would be down on the floor with them, picking up a block and putting it down again, over and over, competely fascinated. I guess you would call this "extreme fatherhood."

I have to say, by the way, that Babyland is one of the best places I have been as an adult. Everything there is immense, beautiful, portentous, and amazing to the point of being terrifying. Rudolph Otto, take note.

Anyway, in Babyland, all locution boils down to stories, and to indications and invocations - epikleses? - of stories. The baby notices types, anti-types, archetypes. Everything is cast in the terms of stories that involve feeling, suffering individuals. "Poor toy dinosaur!" "Happy little truck!" In this world, Daddy is like the truck or the dinosaur. He is a character in a drama. And so is the Baby himself. So when Daddy refers to himself as "Daddy," rather than, "me," he is adopting the conventions of the baby's way of understanding things. It is perhaps in just this way that the baby comes to understand that he is himself a dramatis persona, a person and a character in a story, just as his Daddy is a character in a story.

[Hunter Baker]

Kristor,

Deep, man.

HB

[Margaret]

That IS deep. I believe Kristor's summed it up.

[anonymous]

My wife and I are unable to have children and greatly feel the loss of it. We have been trying to adopt for several years but have not had any luck being chosen thus far by "birthmothers". It is particularly painful when family members and friends with kids respond basically that we should be grateful we don't have the responsibilities of parenting. But it is the very sentiments that you express that cause us pain because we know we are missing out on the greatest joys in life. We wish our family and friends all understood that. Glad you shared what you did. So many people don't realize what great joy they are missing by purposely not having children. I find it so ironic that there are many like us who would do anything (morally acceptable) to have this blessing. That is another thing to be aware of- that is, not to judge the childless or those with few children. It is not always by choice.