Parenting Pep Talk #33 – Man of my Family

Parenting Pep Talk is a weekly series of guest posts all about encouraging other parents by sharing some of our happy moments, the advice that has worked for us and some positive words of encouragement.

 

Today’s post is from Man of my Family, who describes himself as follows:

 

I’m the Man of my family, and the plan as a husband and father is to be honest, positive and maybe even helpful on all things parenting, marriage and masculinity. I’m blogging for fun and to make sense of parenting for myself. Sharing my thoughts, epiphanies, and a few trials and tribulations seem a fun way to do it!

 

1) Tell us a little bit about you and your family

I’m 30 and live with my wonderful wife (who is nearly 31, haha!), our daughter who will be three at Christmas time, and our cat who is 13. We live two hours from each of respective families, so we form a nice self-contained little unit and have to spend a lot of our weekends making long car journeys.

 

I work in finance and commute daily into London, my wife is a solicitor, and our daughter is apparently (and concerningly) the nursery ringleader.

 

2) How would you describe your parenting style?

I think style is a bit of a grand term for what I do! As a rule I try to be pragmatic and avoid “taking a position” on the parenting issues that come up; see what is going to work and what isn’t.

 

As a parent I feel constantly unsure of myself, so I tend to alternate between being the stereotypical ‘fun Dad’; Dad jokes, winding her up, silly voices and trying to find ways for her to ‘help’ with whatever we are doing.

 

This is normally followed by a parental guilt trip where I feel I need to be stricter, challenge her and make her do as she is told. Of course I hope that change is driven by her behaviour rather than my own internally confused demons; but who knows!?

 

3) What’s your favourite thing about being a parent?

Time for a cliché – I love seeing our daughter making sense of the world and interpreting it in her own way, meanwhile she is showing off a selection of my traits or my wife’s.

 

We try to educate her, expose her to new experiences, and frankly second guess what she will like…then boom, all of a sudden they have their own ideas, their own preferences and methods…meanwhile doing exactly what we’d done 28 years ago, like rowing down the hallway in a washing basket, or stamping her feet like her Mummy used to!

 

4) What piece of advice have you been given that you found especially helpful?

This is a tough one…my wife would say “sleep when they sleep”, especially early on. I think I would say the broader “look after yourself”. Especially for the ‘stay-at-home’-ers…don’t be tricked into thinking that you can have lunch, wash up, do the laundry, pay the TV licence, text your friends, read the paper, watch Neighbours and still get a cheeky half hour in….you won’t! Eating and sleeping are important…do them, then prioritise the rest.

 

5) What one piece of encouraging advice would you give to a new parent?

It isn’t short but it is really important.

 

Parenting is your responsibility; own it. Everybody has an opinion, they are welcome to it, but they aren’t you. I’d recommend (if you have a partner) make sure you are a team.

 

Forget what your in-laws say;

Forget what your work colleagues say;

Forget what your partner’s mate says; and

Forget what your own parents say.

 

Together you need to work out what you are going to do, and what is going to work. Ask advice from people, and pick and choose the bits that fit. I think that not only makes your marriage/relationship healthier (and easier) but makes you feel more comfortable as a parent.

 

So don’t panic, you will get there and you’ll do fine.

 

6) Can you share one of your favourite parenting moments?

Can I share two…one bad and one good?

 

When our daughter was about four or five days old, I had a cunning plan; a plan so cunning that it failed abysmally! We worked out that she slept for a couple of hours in the evening between about 8pm and 10pm when we were normally eating dinner. We decided that we would have a super quick dinner, and all go to bed at 9pm and by the time the middle of the night feeding and crying began we wouldn’t feel so tired. Unfortunately, it worked and we all dropped off for a quick snooze. When the middle of the night crying started I jumped up to soothe her; I was holding her I looked out the window, “Blimey, there is a massive queue outside the pizza place, I thought they closed at 10”. Ah, it was only 9.45pm and we were both now wide awake. By 2am we were ready for breakfast…it was a long day!

 

Through the separation anxiety phases, my daughter almost completely shut me out; I’d never felt so hurt. Then we had a Saturday together when Mummy had to be elsewhere and it was almost perfect. She ate all of her meals, let me soothe her when she cried, we went strawberry picking together (she carried the punnet, very proud!), sat out in the paddling pool together and played boats. It was like the spell was lifted. Seeing her telling my wife about our day was brilliant; I could see her excitement, and the strain of being the “wanted” parent lift from my wife’s face.

 

7) Anything else that you would like to share to encourage other parents?

• Get stuck in, it is more fun that way!
• You can’t hang onto your old life, so embrace your new life;
• And finally…remember a family isn’t one thing; having kids is the ultimate commitment, but you still have to work at your marriage/relationship. The happier you are with each other, the easier it will be to parent together. Families should be happy…that includes you, it includes your partner, and it includes the cat, or the dog (or the budgey, or the hamster…), so make sure there is something for everybody!

 

Oh! and read my blog, it is great!

 

Thank you Man of my Family for sharing your positive parenting moments and the advice you have found helpful.

 

You can connect with Man of my Family on the following social networks:

Twitter
Facebook

 

If you’d like to share some of your positive parenting moments on the Parenting Pep Talk, then let me know in the comments below and I’ll email you with more details.