Son, read my blog

NOTE: This will be a longer than usual post.

“He wants to live on through something – and in his case, his masterpiece is his son... all of us want that, and it gets more poignant as we get more anonymous in this world.” – Arthur Miller

I can never explain the quirks of being a father just in words, not even in volumes of writing that I may force my weird looking fingers to write. The feeling is just weirdly beautiful in a way, and somewhat disturbing and superficial. From here on, I would like to say sorry due to the fact that I have avoided this topic for a great deal of time, confining my realizations and acceptance to myself (note that not all realizations and acceptance are of necessarily good.)

There are things that will definitely change when you become a dad, especially a young one (in my experience.) That leap towards parenthood is frightening enough that you retort to that basic human instinct: fight or flight.

One, you take the low road and work your way up to the top: the low road being spat at, kicked in and mashed through (though just partly kidding) during the process of keeping true to what you chose to do (remember that the choice was always there, it was and always will be there regardless of denial and self-loathing.) Or two, you take the high road and abandon all imaginations of keeping a little nucleus of a family and throwing it all out the window thru whatever means necessary. You just risk it and jump to whatever awaits you after the plunge; may it be floors of a high rise building flashing right before you (the possibilities can be specified but are not, to be fair to other readers who have done this or who may have known someone else who did; let’s have a working boundary even on a shameless enough blog with sailor-mouthing tendencies.)

Anyhow, going into parenthood is an early moral dilemma/trial. Mind you, mere conceiving may not necessarily mean being a “parent” already, so that goes to men, also. You choose your end game. You get to feel the emotions of a PMS-ing girl (no offense meant to women.) That whirlwind of a ride through gaping mouths of sea monsters and caverns within a raging fucking volcano and then some. You get the shivers of a man about to be put to death, you say all the prayers that you know and you Google some more even from another belief system. Everything you’ll do from that moment on will send ripples into the future. You’ll get scared, everyone does; even those who are prepared. As I said earlier, it is a basic human instinct; it is always there.

And when you choose the path to parenthood, comes the next stage. You go through the motions of it: and I mean ALL of it. The periods of excitement, anxiety, rage, joy and a hella lot more. It will be a Russian Roulette, you’ll never know when the emotions will shoot you right in the temple. Or God forbid, you only get a punch out of it, on the side of the head, to the face or to the ribs or to wherever on your body. And you will take it because you made that decision.

To painfully enumerate the things that you’ll have to go through (based from my own experiences) would be to shortchange you with this crappy post. So let’s jump to the quirky parts, your 9 (more or less) month discovery will be a story on its own and you may have fun in telling it to others.

Let’s go through some of the changes that you’ll go through (now, from here on this will be on the male perspective though it may apply on other orientation as well):

You dress less or more: on any given moment, you may choose to dress down like you have given up on yourself, fully accepting your fate as a man who’ll never be able to attract specimens from the other genders of life. In Vonnegut’s book, you may fully shun at least 5 Tralfamadorian concepts of sexes with your depressed sense of style. You resign yourself to ripped jeans, dirty shoes and size-too-big shirts just because you have more things to think about than what you’ll look like every morning of your life. You may also choose to have a no-frills haircut just so you could save time on the styling and money on hair product. Or you may dress more on the side to say that you have just discovered a new life, thus, you get a do-over even just for looking good in the mirror. Warning: this will be a struggle.

The blogger with his young overseer and captor

Often times, you won’t mind doing things that you once did when you were single. You’ll be too busy trying to think of more important things like milk and diaper money, check ups, vaccines, baby biscuits and cute little socks. The list goes on.

You also get to revisit your childhood (and be annoyed or amazed by it): You’ll love your child more than anything but when you see that little double of yours, you get to reminisce the times of your own childhood. You remember the first fight you ever got into, how you cried back home because the other boy you had a fight with had a cousin for a backup to help hand your ass to you. Or not remember how you may have acted back then: like a complete brat that you would now want to send back to space strapped to a Soyuz rocket. It will be a fun phase (though you may not be necessarily amused all throughout .) You may become beady eyed during this one.

You sync with your kid: Know that thing that parents say when their babies have booboos? “I wish I could take that pain away.” Well, it is true. Unless you are a sick bastard who wants to watch your kid get beat up by bullies or get grilled by fever. You’ll feel their pain. On this one, I give my word. If you don’t feel it, you can call me a sissy ass cunt. You’ll know you’re a parent when you get to experience this. And as for the bullies who pick on your kid, time will come that you’ll take justice into your own hands. You’ll demolish that Lego tower, slap his ice cream to the ground or maybe even sneak a little dirty shot to serve vengeance. You’d want to send a message: “Don’t ever touch my kid. P*?#&@%## mo!”

I told you, this will be a long post but there are no regrets with this one. Just like the road you’ll take when you make that choice. And you know what? You’ll be happy you did make that choice. You may be contributing to the ballooning population of the world that eats up the depleting resources but at least you’d have a good thing to call your own.

Plus, it’s more fun watching dvd’s when you have a little doppelganger running all around the place wreaking cute, cuddly havoc. Prepare for projectile pukes. Baby wipes will be very handy.