Becoming the person you want your child to see

I know my life will change.

People who are already parents point this out to me at seemingly every opportunity and with altogether too much barely concealed glee. I don't begrudge them their fun and I'm not quite delusional enough to believe I won't suffer the sleeplessness, haplessness and defencelessness that those who have gone before me have endured. I am still secretly hopeful that the degree to which I will suffer those things is far less and I will have the opportunity to offhandedly say things like "I don't know what all the fuss is about" and "He woke us up early... it was just after six". Then pause to look into their eyes as the fires of their rage are furiously quelled by decorum and the subject is quickly changed. There may not be much time to enjoy TV but entertainment is there to be had if you look hard enough for it.

One becomes much more aware of the messages about child rearing information that surround us too. I do not Facefriendspacetwoot so it isn't the sophisticated analysis that the internet giants employ to discover that you are a liberal voting, double espresso drinking, concert going, ford driving, non-condom buying soon-to-be father. (To be fair I am only the last of those). Instead I think it is more that we tune in and out of the constant stream of information that tires us out so completely each and every day. So now I am much more likely to read and notice things like "5 ways to know your child is a psychopath", "How young is too young for chores" and "Is coal mining a chore or a viable career path for the young post millennial?".

As is always the case the confirmation bias is strong. Articles that encourage the traits you already believe in are held up as the definitive way to ensure your child will be happy, successful and, most of all, willing to look after you when you no longer can. Articles that go against your established, or at least intended, plans are dismissed as the barely coherent ramblings of an alcoholic journalist trying their had at a subject they know nothing about.

A bit like when the cricket guy gets roped in to write about the FIFA World Cup (I only put "FIFA" in because I assume you're an idiot) and can't help himself when he uses phrases like "kick a goal", "known as the Bradman of Brazil" and "11 players per side just like the older game of cricket".

The funny thing is none of that information you read is likely to sway you, even if you want it to, because we are very instinctive and outrageously forgetful. Even if you would like to believe that we are guided by rational thought and open to change. If you doubt this I suggest you attempt to coach a football team and I'm not restricting myself to the realms of the local U5's here. Though it's probably too much to ask for you to gain the qualifications and experience required to coach, say, Barcelona. You can come up with the most rudimentary of game plans and practice it all week long but as soon as they cross that white line they instantly forget every instruction and simply revert to type. For the U5's that means forming a tight huddle around the ball and trying to propel it goalward by sheer force of numbers and for Barcelona it's show off a bit to stay on contract until the defender gets too close and then pass it to Messi.

Both methods work, that's why they continue to be used. Optimal they ain't.

So what do I do? More importantly, what's my "revert to type"? If I'm to be worried about doing something wrong then surely step 1 is to figure out what I'm likely to do, figure out if that's OK and if it isn't try to change that specific path. This is hard to do if no part of this path has been walked by me before.

I would like to instil the virtues of knowledge, confidence, sound motor skills and the value of honesty and community. Actually I'm not sure about that last one but I appreciate that no man is an island (thank you John Donne) and it's very hard to get by without at least a little bit of social skill and communitymindedness. After all, Messi needs someone to pass the ball to him.

One point that has stuck with me so far from all this ad-hoc research into how to grow a human being is that like the apes we are our young will take a lot of their cues on a wide range of attributes from their parents. Which gives me pause to make some uncomfortable self-assessment.

My son is likely to stare into a screen when he isn't busily picking his nose or thinking about where his next piece of cake is coming from.

Maybe it's not so much about raising a child as it is the ultimate motivator for self improvement.

Fatherhood

I'm going to become a father.

It has taken a while for that reality to hit home, and it probably still hasn't even now after the antenatal classes have been had (x2), the room has been set up and the child seat installed in the car. Even though I have purchased a onesie from the merchandising shop for my football team I fear that I am still not ready. Of course it is rare that anyone is really truly ready, and at the time the decision is somewhat clouded by the prospect of sex.

As I grew up I periodically had visions of what it might be like to have a child and to be able to pass on various wisdoms I had accumulated over many years of often painful lessons. Occasionally I would also fantasise about how that child might casually discard all advice I was imparting in favour of whatever their friends would proclaim to be the absolute truth. For example the certain death that results from eating spinach. Perhaps my subconscious was passing judgement on the value of my collected wisdom. At any rate my life experiences were such that I had decided that people suck and putting more of them on this planet would be doing a disservice to the child, the planet and my ability to do what I wanted. Of course what I wanted was mostly to stay home and not put up with the sucky people.

So for nigh on half a century I was satisfied that I would be the end of my particular line and enjoy the consequences of that. Chief among them the freedom to eat what I wanted, go where I pleased and control my own finances. Being able to afford to eat and service a mortgage at the same time provides a powerful rush of superiority when you are surrounded by people who cannot. This is probably a Sydney thing.

They say the only constant in the Universe is change, and as big a fan of change as I am not it ultimately caught up with me too.

I'm not sure at which point in my life my father went from looking after me to me looking after him. Mum has some strong opinions on this but as he slowly deteriorated from a man who liked to drink and smoke to a man who suffered from the consequences of those pastimes I pondered what he had taught me and how those lessons would come to any use. In all fairness he was not particularly scholarly, though he had a degree in political science, and wasn't inclined to sit down and explain his thoughts and beliefs to me. That in itself was a lesson because as much as we think we understand of the world when we are young age gives us the wisdom to know, in retrospect, we were idiots. Idiots who managed to survive the world through sheer dumb luck.

There is also my sister, who appeared to be equally happy to end the family tree in this generation, but then announced she was pregnant by handing me a picture of an ultrasound. The technology is constantly improving to the point where I have seen a remarkably detailed 3D image of my unborn child but that particular image was more like the static of an analogue TV (lack of) signal. I know that comparison is rapidly losing currency but the takeaway here is that it took me several moments to comprehend what I was looking at and the message it was conveying. At that point I knew my life was changing, hers much more so but that wasn't really my focus. As it dawned on me what she was telling me shock and delight jockeyed for the theme of my response to her. To this day I'm not sure which of them won that race in the photofinish and I am much too cowardly to find out by asking the only other person who might know the answer.

It's OK to change your mind. People will be surprised, but they won't care.

My nephew is a delightful young man now, though I am assured that is not always the case, who will have all the opportunities he could want for.

So there it is. I can change my mind, I can apply the lessons I learnt to make a better human being and in doing so I will address the imbalance between people who suck and those who do not. I am choosing to be the change I want to see in the world, and it scares me.