A Crash Course in Fatherhood

Copyright 2007 by Valentine J. Brkich (First printed in The Point Magazine, Wexford, PA)

My wife and I have been together for almost eight years. When you’ve been together with someone for this long, inevitably the question comes up: So when are you guys gonna have kids? Someday soon, I say. Little did I know that I’d be thrust into fatherhood a lot earlier than I thought.

A couple weeks ago my wife agreed to baby-sit three children for a friend while she and her husband went to the Caribbean for their anniversary. Just to repeat: my wife agreed to baby-sit THREE CHILDREN. And this wasn’t for a day or two; it was for FOUR DAYS! Why she agreed to this I’ll never know. I can only assume that she had a bad reaction to some medication.

The kids arrived on Sunday afternoon. There was a boy, age 7, and two girls, ages 8 and 4. Within minutes of entering the house, they began to do all the things that kids do: bounce off of the walls, spill things, create messes, etc. For me it was instant anxiety. It was the fatherhood equivalent of going from zero to 60 in 4.2 seconds. I thought about escaping, but I knew I’d never make it out without my wife seeing me.

Life is different when you have children. For example, you can forget about “alone time.” The only “alone time” you have when you have kids is when you’re asleep, which is not very often. Every other waking hour is spent teaching, playing, correcting, disciplining, dressing, cleaning, feeding, cleaning some more, explaining, explaining some more, dropping off, picking up, and probably cleaning some more. Basically you’re a human verb.

Your television viewing habits completely change, too. When kids are running around, you have to be very careful what you watch because kids pick up everything. In other words, your list of Approved Channels goes from 150 stations down to two: Nickelodeon and The Disney Channel. And let me tell you, there’s only so much “Pokemon” and “Dora the Explorer” a man can take before his brain starts to turn to mush.

The scary thing is these are good kids—really good kids. By the time their parents came to pick them up on Wednesday night, however, I felt like I had just finished taking the SAT while running a marathon—backwards! My wife, on the other hand was actually sad to see them go. I’m starting to think she might not be mentally stable.

So I guess I better start preparing myself for fatherhood. Whenever it does happen, it’s not going to be easy, that’s for sure. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go catch up on some “alone time.” Pokemon is on.