What Happens When You Become A Parent

The next thing that I think is really important in terms of having kids is that I believe that there is a certain type of maturation and a certain type of selflessness that emerges when you become a parent. And I say this as somebody who's almost two and a half years into being a parent. I'm still a rookie, you know, I'm still a novice by every means. I don't pretend to, you know, be a master at parenting, nor do I think I ever will, because I think that's a fallacy in itself. But what I can tell you unequivocally is that having my son has matured me in ways that I think would have been extremely challenging to experience had I not had a child. You know, maturation and maturity is something that comes with certain experiences. It comes with us putting ourselves into specific types of situations where we are selfless, where we are tending to others, where we are embodying what I was talking about before, right? Looking at some of the biggest problems and challenges that we face individually and communally and collectively as a human species and doing, trying to do something towards that, whether it's sacrifice based or creation based or whatever it might be. And so I do believe that becoming a parent, there's a specific kind of maturation that comes along with that. Now, I'm not saying that if you're not a parent, you'll never mature. I think that there's people out there that might say that, but I don't believe that. I think you can mature in a number of ways. You know, if you take care of an aging parent, as an example, that is a specific type of maturation. You know, there's nothing more humbling than being a child who has to change the diapers of their parents, right? Or who has to help their, you know, elderly aging parents in and out of the bathtub and scrub them down and bathe them. You know, there's a specific type of maturation that comes along with that. And so can you get the type of maturation that you may get out of parenting? For sure. Do some people become parents and miss out on that maturation altogether? Abso freaking lutely. You've probably met a few in your lifetime. So I think that's another, another sort of reason why I think becoming a parent and having a child is important. And then there's a couple other reasons that I think are brief. Number one, not everybody gets to do it. You know, if you're a man, I think in America, it's roughly like 75 to 80% of men will have children. And that's not, that's not accounting for the men who are raising other people's children that actually aren't theirs. We'll leave that one out of the equation. But, you know, if a child is born, it's come from a biological woman. Just full story, you know, period, end of story. And so I think for a lot of men, there's this reality that we live with that not all men are going to have children and not all men will even have the opportunity to have children. And certainly not, you know, no man has the option to have a child unless he's going to go out and adopt one, you know, if he can't have one with a partner and whatnot. And so I think that's a part of it. And I think lastly, it puts a lot into perspective. I think it. I think having kids for a lot of people puts into perspective what really effing matters in life. You know, what matters? Because all of a sudden here you are tending to somebody who has zero capacity, you know, in the first few years to take care of themselves at all. You know, they are basically helpless little entities that require care a hundred percent of the time. And I think as a, as a parent, being in charge of that and then being around our children as they start to grow puts into perspective challenges, problems, how you want to spend your time, what really matters, what brings you joy. You know, I think, I think a lot of parents end up letting go of a lot of the petty garbage that they would normally hold on to if they're doing their own inner work. You know, if you become. I think one of the interesting things is that when you become a parent, all of your childhood stuff will inevitably come up. You know, all of your ideas of like, when I have a child, I'll raise them like this, and I'll never do that. And I'll never be like my mom or my dad or, you know, whatever that is. All of your childhood stuff comes forward. And so, you know, I'm not saying that you should have a child so that you can deal with your childhood stuff like that's, that's certainly not it. You need to do that on your own and not, you know, not burden your child with them being the reason, you know, that you get to work on your stuff. But it's going to happen and it's an opportunity for you to really get clear on what matters for you in your life. And I'll give you an example of this the other day. So out in Our front yard, we have this. We have septic field in our house, right? We have. Well, we have a septic field. And I wanted the house to be sort of like as quote unquote, off grid as humanly possible. And we're making some efforts to do that. But my son, on top of the septic field, we just planted these two big plots of wildflowers because I had this idea of covering it with wildflowers and I kind of thought that would be funny to have basically where all of our poop goes to have flowers growing out of top of that. But anyway, on the top of this field there's all these rocks, right? These sort of big and medium and small size rocks. And my son has gotten into the habit. I'll make coffee in the morning and we'll go outside. And he's gotten into the habit. He loves to go over to the field and try and pick up these medium and large sized rocks and then throw them over the side because it's elevated to this. It's sort of like 20 yards by 10 yards big. And he likes to just throw them over the side. And then there's like this, you know, sort of five to six foot drop down the side. You can walk down, but it's pretty damn steep. And in those moments, in these moments with my boy where he is just so present to picking up these rocks and like grunting, you know, it's like a very primal experience. He's like trying to pick up this rock that weighs like, you know, a quarter of the of his weight. He's like. And he's struggling and he's struggling and he's looking at me and he's like, you know, trying to get me to help him. And every once in a while he'll pick up a decent one, he'll toss it over the side. And just the pure joy that he gets out of that, just out of picking rocks up off the ground or digging them out and throwing them down the side of this little hill, he is in heaven. And what I've started to realize in these moments as I stand there in the morning drinking a coffee or at the end of the day after a long workday, is these moments require nothing else. These moments where I'm sitting with my son digging a rock out so he can throw it down a small hill, they require nothing else. There is nothing else that is needed besides my presence, besides my contribution to helping to dig the rock, besides my witnessing of what he's doing. These moments require nothing. And I think that in itself is one of the most beautiful gifts that becoming a parent can offer, that all of us in our lives, all of us are trying to find what they call in Zen satori, these brief little moments of enlightenment where we find a kind of peace or serenity, a kind of not full enlightenment, but this bliss, you know, this. Okay, this peace in the moment. And every parent that I've ever talked to has had these moments where their kid does something or they're doing something arbitrary with their child going for a walk or, you know, playing in the dirt or whatever it is. And it's just a perfect moment. And it doesn't need anything else and it doesn't need to be captured for social media and it doesn't need to be put online and it doesn't need to be written about and it doesn't need any of that, none of that nonsense is required. And in a life where we can be so busy and so taxed and so stressed and so overwhelmed and so in pursuit of meaning and purpose and function and joy and happiness and satiation of every single kind, I think, think that it's in parenting, if we are open to it and we're listening and we're looking, that we can find these absolutely perfect moments where nothing can be taken away from them and nothing is needed to be added. And they're just beautiful, they are awe inspiring and they are wonderful and they won't last forever. And it reminds you of the beauty of life, the finiteness of life, because you know that it's going to, you know, end within the matter of moments and maybe it'll come again, but it reminds you of that deep part of the human spirit that we are all so desperately looking to connect to.