Dad Guilt?
So Mom guilt is a thing, right!? Or so my wife, Hanna tells me. She feels guilty about going back to work so soon after our first son, Jaxon, was born. She feels guilty about not spending as much time with Jaxon lately because we just brought our second son, Declan, home from the hospital. She feels guilty that we cannot have “relations” for six weeks since she just gave birth. OK so maybe she doesn’t harbor as much resentment for that last one as the other two but you get where I’m going here.
So if there is Mom guilt, is their Dad guilt as well? We never hear about it. We never talk about it. So does that mean it isn’t there?
Let’s take a quick minute to talk about how I approach problems in my life. I try to bring the same ideology and scientific method into solving my life issues, and both my personal and professional life. First identify the problem, then I take into account the people and circumstances surrounding the problem, I step back and assess the situation as a whole, I run through several possible solution scenarios in my head, and I resolve myself to the solution with the best interests of everyone involved, and implement a plan to those ends.
Sounds reasonable right? A levelheaded decision made by a levelheaded guy. Emotions? What are these emotions you speak of? They definitely don't have space in my scientific methodology of problem solving. That equation is full.
So armed with a keen sense of being able to save the world from any problem I take on life day by day and generally it goes pretty well. Pretty well until I got hammered with my first real bout of DAD GUILT!
Wait, its real? Yup, it is. And it happened to me today. And it sucked. Let me explain.
Back story: Hanna has not been getting much sleep since Declan was born. I think her default emotion right now is zombie. She is exclusively nursing him and he eats every two hours on the two hours. He is an eating machine. Now to exasperate the situation Jaxon was throwing up all night last night. Like the entire con-tense of his stomach and perhaps a few feet of his small intestine. I'm pretty sure she got about 17 minutes of sleep last night. (We will address the super hero status of my wife in a future post)
Flash to 5 am today. 5 am my alarm goes off. I smash my phone. Roll out of bed. Trudge to the shower. Just as I'm about to get in the door slowly creeps open.
Standing there with the baby propped up on her shoulder looking absolutely sleep deprived was Hanna. Then with her bottom lip quivering she squeeked out,
"Could you stay home from work today?"
And there it was ladies and gentlemen. It hit me in the stomach like a sledge hammer. I knew I couldn't stay home the instant she asked because of circumstance at work. Any other day and it wouldn't have been a problem. But of course it was today. There was just no way. I knew I had to go to work and provide for my family. My brain told me so. But there was this knot that formed in my gut. I wanted to stay home to help Hanna. She needed me. In my heart I needed to be home. I just couldn't be.
bum Bum BUM....... Dad Guilt, rearing its ugly head. I must have called Hanna half a dozen times to check in on her and the kids, and told her I was sorry I couldn't be there just as many times. And she understood. She wasn't angry or anything. I was doing it to myself and I couldn't do anything to stop it. Is this what it's like to be a Mom? I don't think I could handle feeling like this all the time. My heart and my brain would short circuit.
So after some inward reflection and a glass of 15 year old scotch I have come to a realization. Dad guilt is definitely real. The real lesson here though is that life is a balancing act. I was able to stay home for the better part of two weeks after Declan was born to support Hanna and make the transition to our life as a family of four go a bit smoother. So I wasn't able to stay home that one day! So what! I need to stop beating myself up about the one small thing I wasn't able to do and focus on doing everything I can to raise my kids well, be there for them and be a good partner for Hanna in our marriage. Those are the things that make your life worthwhile.