My First 30 Days as a New Dad
Letting go of 3,000 worries, unconditioned awareness, and dreams of a lion
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Welcome, Baby Noah
Our baby boy Noah was born on August 29th at 5:15 am at a respectable 3.2 kgs, kicking and screaming into the world. I was watching his little head pop out as my wife was pushing – very surreal – and then, suddenly, he was there. That moment was actually calm, followed by fear, wonder and excitement. Oh, now I’m a dad! Now we’re parents!
In an unfair biological process, my wife took the brunt of the work. My role during the 26-hour labor process was mostly supportive, giving her water, pushing and massaging her back to make the intense pain a little bit more tolerable. “Are you okay?” I asked at one point, realizing how stupid my question was as it came out of my mouth. “Of course I’m not okay!”
She didn’t use any pain meds until the end, and once she got the epidural it felt like the doctors deprioritized us. She was fully dilated and ready to deliver, but we were left waiting for five hours until the doctor came for the delivery. We were already tired, and this made the process even more exhausting. But it was all worth it.
The last month has flown by very quickly. It’s been full of sleep deprivation interspersed with moments of love and joy, self-reflection and getting used to a new routine. I wanted to share a few of the lessons and observations I’ve had so far.
A Philosopher in the Sky
We chose the name Noah because neither my wife or I have any strong associations with the name Noah, and it’s easy to say in both English and Japanese. His Japanese characters are 伸空, which means something like “expansive sky” or “limitless.” We considered Neo, too, but considering the Matrix reference it might set unrealistic expectations and set him up for future bullying.
He was born a Virgo during an astronomical phenomena called Mercury retrograde (an optical illusion), when Mercury appears to be moving backwards in the sky. They say that babies born during this time are destined to be philosophers because they are always going back to look at things. Given his signature inquisitive look, this may very well come true.
3 Years in the Making
The sex-ed videos you watch in grade school are quite deceiving. They give you the impression that getting pregnant is the easiest thing in the world. Perhaps when you’re 16, but once you get into your late twenties and beyond, your chances drop precipitously.
Also, the testosterone rate for men has declined by almost 40% in the last 20 years. This is probably due to increased stress, pollution, and other effects of our crappy modern lifestyle. Interestingly, the anogenital ratio is linked to fertility and this has been shrinking the last few decades.
The point is, you don’t really know how hard it is until you try. In our case, we had a few miscarriages and there was an issue with our first pregnancy. We got lucky with our first round of IVF and were able to conceive Noah. We also have some frozen eggs as backups.
A lot of my friends tried to get pregnant and found out it’s not that easy. Many of my female friends already have irregular periods from the anxiety and stress of work. When they start trying, they often have several miscarriages. Fortunately after years of trying they finally have kids either naturally or through IVF. But some are still trying…
Is there a 1% chance that you might want kids in the future? If so, even if you don’t have a partner and you are a woman approaching your 30s, then I truly believe getting your eggs frozen is a wise investment. A little investment now beats a painfully prolonged journey or potentially a lifetime of regret. Sperm, on the other hand, is best around age 30-35, so if you’re around that age then it’s a good time to freeze your sperm.
Sleep Deprivation Offset by Love
At first Noah was waking up every 2-3 hours. Now it’s more like 3 hours. At night, at his best so far he’s slept from around 1030pm to 4am, which was great. The book Cherish the First 6 Weeks which my mom sent has been quite helpful. Still, we’re sleep deprived. On one hand, this lack of sleep makes me retarded. I forget to turn off the kitchen sink, bump my head against the door, and not infrequently forget what I’m doing.
On the other hand, this tiredness is offset by many precious moments with Noah. A favorite time for me is the 10pm feeding when I can feed him with the bottle (otherwise it’s my wire breastfeeding) and make eye contact with him as he wiggles around and then eventually falls asleep. Playing and dancing to silly nursery rhymes and What Does the Fox Say is pretty fun, too.
This has definitely given me a renewed sense of purpose and meaning in my life. They say that people with kids are less likely to get burned out, exactly for this reason. Now, I love my work running events and retreats, and writing. It’s not that I feel these are necessarily downgraded, but it’s more like an additional reason to be grateful for life. I guess if this wasn’t so, it would be a lot harder to be a parent. Thank you oxytocin.
I also feel that having a kid tests your patience, requires you to confront your weaknesses, and makes you more aware of your patterns. Like when I start making a comment like “good boy” or “bad boy.” Wait, why am I judging him already? Who came up with what's good and bad? This is my social conditioning.
With the right mindset, being open and curious, I think kids are an incredible opportunity for personal change and transformation. I have a lot to learn and I’m already seeing how it’s not just him growing, but us all growing together.
Dreams of a Lion
My biggest fear about having a child wasn’t made apparent to me until the first few days holding little Noah in my arms. Feeling irritable at 3 am in the morning because I’m so used to my 8 hours of sleep, I immediately felt the power difference between myself and him.
It dawned on me how small, helpless and completely at my mercy he was in that moment. There was a fear of my own power, his helplessness, and my own potential for harm as a much larger human. This fear gripped me.
For the next several days I had dreams of taming this power. In one dream, a fierce lion entered our home. Not knowing what to do, I cooked up some of my (delicious) baked meatballs, which seemed to calm him down. And then our pet cat came in and played with the lion.
After these dreams, my fear subsided. The recognition of power transformed to a playful energy and the recognition of being a protector – the classic symbol being a lion. This is how many dreams work. They act as “processing” for our emotions; simply having the dream can be processing, or it can be a sign to reflect or face a fear.
I’ve since had many other processing dreams and am working with a classically trained Jungian analyst to interpret them, which I will share in an upcoming post.
The Unconditioned Consciousness of a Child
Children haven’t yet learned what’s good or bad, right or wrong, nice or not nice. They haven’t learned society's expectations, what they should or shouldn’t do. They don’t have to filter anything. They’re not shy about being naked. All of the patterns, “supposed to-be’s,” traumas, haven’t been inflicted or installed. They are a blank slate.1
Traditions across time have spoken about making your “mind like a child.”
“He who is in harmony with the Tao is like a newborn child.” - Lao Tzu
"Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." - Jesus Christ
"The child is the father of the man." - Buddha
What all of these spiritual leaders are taking about is letting go of the conditioned self and tapping into something beyond all of that. When you do any deep meditation or even prayer, this is exactly what starts to happen.
William Butler Yates said,
"We can make our minds so like still water that beings gather around us, that they may see their own images and so live for a moment with a clearer, perhaps even a fiercer life because of our quiet."
Which made me wonder: why are some people uncomfortable around infants and children? Maybe they don’t know how to hold them or are simply not used to being around crying babies. But we were all babies at one point! How can you reject what you used to be?
I suspect that perhaps, like the quiet Yates talks about, our discomfort is a reflection of this quiet, unconditioned state. When we encounter a child's purity and lack of preconceptions, it serves as a mirror to our own judgments and masks.
This unfiltered innocence can be unsettling, since it causes us to confront aspects of ourselves we've hidden or forgotten. This might also be why people are uncomfortable around spiritual leaders or irreverent people who are not afraid to express their authentic selves.
3,000 Strands of Worry
How can I be more like Noah and get closer to this unconditioned consciousness? I wondered. Blindly following my impulses and desires probably wasn’t the answer. But oftentimes we ignore our most necessary impulses, like getting a glass of water when we need to, or taking a break from work when we’re tired. Our thinking-mind has taken over.
There’s a Chinese saying when it comes to our hair - 三千烦恼丝 (san-qian-fan-nao-si) - literally meaning "three thousand strands of worry". So I chopped mine off. How much time have you spent worrying about your hair in your life? Noah definitely doesn’t give a damn about the little hair that he has. Why should I?
Parkinson's Law
I’ve put my events and workshops on hold for a month, and have been writing a bit less. But, once I started up some work again this week, I found something peculiar: I would still get the same amount of work done, but in a shorter time. I’d do a writing sprint while my wife is feeding, and make the most of the free time I do have.
Parkinson's Law states that "Work expands to fill the time available for its completion."
I think this is how people with multiple kids can still run a startup and make time for their own personal life. You work less hours, but you’re more efficient with the time you do have. This means that I need to be more strategic and selfish about me-time, but also flexible when the needs of the family take priority.
Testing the Foundations of the Relationship
Being sleep-deprived is like being drunk. You’re forgetful, clumsy, and your emotions just come out. Having a screaming child there only makes you less patient and amplifies the rest. My wife and I have no choice but to work as a team. But how strong the team is depends on what habits and trust you’ve established in the past. Any weakness in communication will reveal itself very quickly.
Having a kid has put tension on us. But so far we’ve done pretty good. We know that if one of us is snappy because they’re tired, don’t take things personally. Or when there’s an agreement to be made, to include both sides and discuss it. The times when things have been unbalanced, we’re not afraid to bring it up and have a talk. I’m glad that we went through shit in the past and learned how to be emotionally vulnerable (=being more honest with each other), otherwise this would be a lot harder or toxic.
“Under pressure, you don’t rise to the occasion, you fall to your level of training.”
Fortunately, there's been a lot of meditation in the last few years. This has helped me be less reactive and even when I am reactive, not to linger on it or beat myself up when I make a mistake. I don’t have time to meditate formally more than a few minutes a day now, but I can take lots of little pauses throughout the day. More than that, Noah has become the meditation. :)
The Nervous System
When you’re a child, you don’t have the capacity to regulate your own nervous system and depend on your caregivers, siblings, and school friends to help you regulate. A lot of us have stored stress and dysregulation from our early years — or even in utero, if mom was stressed — and this impacts how you show up for the rest of your life.
Allan Schore, a neurobiologist, says most of all psychopathology is due to ruptures of the bonding/regulation sequence that occurs during the first 12 to 18 months of life between the caregiver and the baby. He says we “download” our nervous system from our caregiver’s.
Of course, no childhood is perfect, so pretty much everyone has some “blocked up” stress and allostatic load. Time does not heal things that are stuck in your body, so it takes your own conscious effort to unclog the pipes and heal past wounds. It’s a never-ending journey but I’ve been doing a lot of work on my nervous system in the last year. I hope this pays off.
It Takes a Village
In hunter-gatherer communities, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and close relatives all played a role in caring for and educating children. Today, most moms in the U.S. only take off 10 weeks, and most dads hardly take any at all. Is this the “progress” of society?
We’re lucky in that my wife has a long maternity leave she plans to take for a year, and that I can work freelance and adjust my schedule. We’re both home and splitting up the housework, and I’m feeling like a true stay-at-home dad. It means I get to cook almost every day, which I love to do.
On top of that, we are corralling the village. We’ve had friends come over with food, help with Noah’s bath time, and both of our families have helped out to make this all a lot easier. Even if it's only for an hour or so here and there, we really appreciate it.
If you have friends with kids, you might think they are too busy to see you or not know how to support them. I promise you that little gestures make a difference: bringing over some food, ordering UberEats, watching their kids while they go to Yoga, helping them for an hour or two to put the baby to sleep so they can take a nap…it all helps.
A Long Journey, Moment-by-Moment
We tend to see future events and states as static. The point where we get a new job, give a speech, retire, solve our problems, or have a kid all seem like “fixed” points. We either look forward to these moments or fear these moments, which causes us to over-value their significance. This tends to pull us out of the present moment and distracts us for when the moment actually comes!
It’s true that there are inflection points in life, and having a kid is a milestone. But these events are just tiny points in time. The moment Noah was born came and passed in an instant. And then reality kept on unfolding, one moment at a time. And then his first smile, his first song, his first time in the park. There are going to be lots of “first times.”
What’s important, I believe, isn’t to get fixated on looking forward to those moments, but to appreciate them when they happen. To be present, available and aware enough to enjoy the fleeting moments of life. This is the start of a long journey, and there are many more moments to come!
Of course, there’s epigenetics and karma, but let’s say that he’s more or less a blank slate compared to most of us. An interesting Quora thread on “are babies enlightened?”.