7 Things I've Learned About Having a Baby in the Past 7 Weeks

Get ready for dad jokes. Plus, recs for Amy Joyce on life as a parenting editor, Sindhu Vee on survival instincts, and Justin Ellis on dad publishing.

Hello! It’s me, Chris, again. Thank you for sticking with me through an unexpectedly early start to my parental leave. And thank you to all the friends who contributed guest posts to keep this newsletter running while I was away.

To be honest though, I’m still not “back” in any real sense. I’m still fully on parental leave in all other aspects of my professional life but I figured I’d dip my toes back in the waters of writing with a newsletter this week. I’m still feeling pretty overwhelmed and exhausted so next week may be back to the guest posts, we’ll see! I am very much in the “take it one day at a time” mode. (Also, just to say, I will definitely be writing about non-kid things in the future if kid stuff is not your jam. But this week, I’m full baby mode. That won’t always be the case, I promise!)

That being said, I am now a dad and we have a seven week old baby, so here are seven things I have learned as a first time parent.

1. Nurses are heroes and should be paid $1 million dollars a year. Look, it’s not like I didn’t respect nurses before, but I hadn’t had a lot of direct interactions with them before and wow, they did the heavy lifting, were so helpful, and with almost no exceptions, had great senses of humor. I am also biased because in the middle of the whole birth experience one nurse told me I was “a real one” and that is the kind of Gen Z compliment that can fuel a Millennial like me for years.

2. Pregnancy and birth are not shared experiences. Before having a baby, I would have told you that it was very important to me to have an equal and equitable relationship in all ways. That’s still important to me as a value! I believe in it, in theory. But after going through this, I can’t help but feel like it’s a wild overstatement when, in a heterosexual couple, the father says “We’re pregnant.” In my experience, we were very much not pregnant and we did not both give birth. The scale was VERY heavily tilted in Mollie’s direction. She did those things and I was there. I did my best to be helpful but I was helpful in the way that the guy who puts out fresh towels in the locker room is helpful to the team that wins the Super Bowl. It’s nice of him to do that, but he’s not getting a championship ring, you know what I mean?

3. It’s incredible the distance, speed, and volume of pee that a baby boy can produce. Truly 90% of the work of changing a diaper at the moment is keeping the firehose full of urine covered and pointed away from both my face and his face. In the first two weeks alone, I had to scrub the walls, mop the floor, and change my entire outfit (head to toe) multiple times because I got soaked. That’s the kind of situation that makes you learn fast. Now, there are only milliseconds between diapers where I’m vulnerable to a blast.

4. It’s cool that adults have the ability to release our own burps. I’m very grateful that after eating, I don’t have to ask a friend to slap my back until I involuntarily release gas. Extremely cool that we eventually develop the ability to do that for ourselves (and that sometimes we even eat a full meal without needing to loudly belch or scream).

5. It’s less cool that adults never get swaddled. Mollie and I have talked several times about how great it would be if you could hire a giant to pick you up in their hand, rock you to sleep, and then wrap you in a warm blanket so you were fully cozy, safe, and warm. By my calculations, this giant would need to be about 20 feet tall, extremely trustworthy and nurturing, and available at all hours of the day and night. If you know anyone who fits the bill, please let me know.

6. The hard stuff is hard, but you already know what those experiences are like. I've been tired before. I have been dirty and not showered before (more times than I care to admit). I have been stressed before. The good parts of having a baby though? The way I would feel holding him or watching him sleep or having him grab my finger with his little hand? That was the new stuff. I was very nervous beforehand and this quote from the comedian Rob Delaney helped me out a lot. In his heartbreaking (and beautiful) book A Heart That Works, he wrote:

   “Whenever someone tells me they’re expecting their first baby and they’re nervous, I tell them the following: “Oh my goodness, that’s wonderful. I am so happy for you. Listen, of course you’re nervous but here’s the deal: you’re ready for all the bad stuff. You’ve been very tired before. You’ve been in pain before. You’ve been worried about money before. You’ve felt like an incapable moron before. So you’ll be fine with the difficult parts! You’re already a pro. What you’re NOT ready for is the wonderful parts. NOTHING can prepare you for how amazing this will be. There is no practice for that.”

7. Every baby is different and every day is different. Before our baby was born, I did an interview with the writer and meditation expert Dan Harris. He congratulated us on the impending new addition to our family and told me that he had once been told that a newborn baby is the greatest meditation teacher you could ever learn from. “The Dalai Lama is about to move into your house.” There’s something very true about that idea. Having a baby has forced me to be so much more focused on the present moment, on what is happening each second, each minute, each day. I’m learning new things about impermanence and transience. Every day is different and every time I think I know the way things go, they change. It’s challenging and beautiful and it resists overanalyzing. I’m also hyperaware of how different every baby is. When I ask friends with kids what works for them, it’s often the exact opposite of what works for us. One baby eats silently and another grunts like a warthog as he chugs down a bottle. One baby loves being rocked and another wants to be left alone in the crib for a nap. What does it mean? I have no idea! I am releasing myself into the idea that we will figure out the things we need to figure out as we go along. And in the meantime, I will do A LOT of laundry and SIGNIFICANTLY LESS showering.

I’ll keep you updated along the way. But for now, that’s what I’ve got. So let’s move along to this week’s list!

My projects and upcoming events:

PODCAST: How to Be a Better Human (TED/PRX) - Season 4 has officially begun! We pre-recorded a bunch of episodes last year and they’re finally being released now. First up, a conversation with death doula Alua Arthur about what it means to have a good end to your time on Earth and why that matters. Listen here (or wherever you get podcasts)

INTERVIEW: Emerging Form - My friend Zach Sherwin and I were interviewed by journalist Christie Aschwanden and poet Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer for their ongoing series looking at the creative process. Meeting Creative Challenges with a Friend

This week’s list (parenting themed)

GREAT:

Amy Joyce spent a decade as the parenting editor at The Washington Post. Before stepping away from that role, she wrote one final column summing up what she learned in her time on the job. It’s lovely. Amy Joyce: The 5 absolute truths I’ve learned in 10 years as a parenting editor (h/t Melinda)

FUNNY:

Sindhu Vee is an award-winning comedian, writer and actor. She’s hugely successful in the U.K. but is just starting to make inroads in the United States. Her standup is very funny, very sharp, and she has an incredible stage presence. I predict you’re going to hear her name a lot more in the years to come. Here’s a fun bit about how terrible human survival instincts are: Children Keep Trying to Hurt Themselves (h/t Kathy)

And here’s another great bit about the difference between getting married and staying married: Marriage Is A Marathon

INTERESTING:

Justin Ellis is one of the most talented writers and producers out there. He currently works for Defector where he oversees smash hits like the Normal Gossip podcast. Justin and I met while sharing an office on the Problem Areas TV show. He was a delight and immediately one of the smartest and most thoughtful people I’d ever met. He’s now a dad and wrote an excellent and moving piece about how terrible most “dad advice” books are and what it means to be a good, empathetic parent in a society that doesn’t offer a lot of clear examples for what that might look like. No One Can Tell You How to Dad

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That's it for this week. Thanks for reading! Please share Bright Spots with anyone you think might enjoy it.

I am a real one,

Chris Duffy

This has been Bright Spots, a newsletter.

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…wait, who are you?

I'm Chris Duffy, a comedian, TV writer, podcast host, and both a former fifth grade teacher and a former fifth grade student. I’m currently writing a nonfiction book about humor for Doubleday.