"We Won't Let Parenthood Change Us…"

Saw a cartoon last Christmas – either in The Spectator or the New Statesman (a sign of the times that even the magazines of the political right and left blur – or should that be Blair? – into one another). It featured, topically, being Christmas, Mary and Joseph and the infant Christ in the manger. The two shiny, happy parents, whilst gazing lovingly at the new arrival, made a resolution” “We won’t,” they agreed between them, “let it change us.”

Raised a wry little smile, I can tell you, being, as I was, six months into parenting.

Eight months on the wry smile is gone. It its place there are peels, gales of laughter. Gales of long, loud, brittle laughter. The kind usually reserved for megalomaniacs in bad sci-fi and spy movies. The kind of take-over-the-world laughter the baddies are prone to, only shot through with notes of desperation. And tiredness. Lots and lots of tiredness.

“We won’t let it change us,” is the battle cry of the new parent. Yet here are just three of the ways I’ve morphed into someone utterly unrecognisable to my former self in just the last 24 hours.

i. Went on to water in the pub on a Saturday night (a Saturday night for Chrissakes!) after the second beer.
ii. Rearranged a night out with old pals over from Ireland because it interfered with Isobella’s routine.
iii. Stood in absolute, total and deeply uncomfortable silence at a party because I had nothing whatsoever to say about any subject other than my daughter.


Number iii may be the most disturbing. I no longer have time to watch football/check the sports pages (or any other newspaper pages, come to that) so don’t know what is going on in that area. So when someone throws me a conversational bone such as “What about that Ronaldo, eh?” I have no response. What about him? Did he die? Commit some horrific crime? Come out of the closet?

Ditto “Have you seen The Dark Knight yet?” It is only from the context (people at a party were talking about movies) and the vital clue of the word “seen” that I even realised that they were talking about films.

So I haven’t let fatherhood change me… aside from the fact that I have stopped paying attention to football, going to see movies or reading newspapers. But apart from that…

Well, apart from that there’s the beer thing I mentioned earlier. I’ve pretty much stopped that altogether. How radical a change can this really be, you may ask? Well, have you been following all those doom and gloom stories in the press about how pub takings are down and the British boozer is on the verge of extinction? I can’t help but think I’ve had a hand in this with my drastic change of habits.

So, to sum up: that’s no drink, no football, no newspapers or telly or new movies (see also books, theatre, music); and pissing off my old pals by my constant rearranging/cancelling nights out/meetings/parties. And that’s only the stuff that’s happened in that last 24 hours.

Does it get me down? Of course it does. Abso-bloody-lutely. But only until Isobella laughs or runs or smiles or says “Daddo!” or makes a soft jobby in her nappy or climbs the stairs or claps her hands or… or anything, really. In fact just to see her wipes all the difficulties away. Fourteen months ago I wouldn’t have dreamt of posting such slushy, sentimental pap on a website for all the world to see. Now, however, I don’t care. Soppy? Sure. Sentimental? You bet your ass. But with one smile from my daughter, I no longer care what anybody thinks. And that’s the biggest change of all.