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Isaac
When my son was around six months old, I realized everything had changed.
I don’t mean the day-to-day life changes; those were immediate and unavoidable after he was born. Sleep comes less frequently, travel is a little more complicated, a million little tasks abound, and on and on and on. Your slice of the pie is just way smaller, my cousin once told me about having kids, which is a really nice way to put it. I’d add that the pie tastes better and is much bigger, even if your piece is still smaller. That part, too, is immediate.
At around six months, though, my son went from being (essentially) a fetus outside the womb to a little tiny person who seemed to respond to input, who could smile, laugh, eat, and show signs of independence. Some writers have described the first few months of parenthood as the “fourth trimester,” which, in my experience, is the right framework.
When my wife was six weeks pregnant and I was looking at my child on an ultrasound and the little burst of light that was his beating heart, I really already felt like a dad — was already projecting personality and consciousness onto that image — and so it feels odd to say that my son was anything other than a baby when he was born. But the difference between a two-week-old baby and a six-month-old baby is almost as large as the difference between a two-year-old and a teenager. The gap really is that wide, proportionally, in terms of what they are capable of and how much you feel like they are observing and noticing you.
Now my son is one and a half years old, and I’ve decided that I’m going to start using Father’s Day every year to reflect on him and my life as a parent. I know this is a politics newsletter, but 1) We can always use the occasional break from the news, 2) You have all (graciously) seemed to appreciate these personal posts in the past, and 3) I actually think the experience of raising children is a pretty big piece of any society, and understanding what it’s like can help inform understandings of policy and politics. Also, while most of my personal life may be boring to readers, I think this part is actually pretty interesting.
I’ll also admit to a selfish reason. When I go back and read my first post reflecting on six weeks of fatherhood and my wife giving birth, I am flooded with a bunch of memories that are already fading, which makes me want to write more about what’s happening now, so I always have some reference point to return to. With some good fortune and the grace of God, when my son is 20, maybe I’ll be able to read one of the 20 or so Father’s Day posts and remember what all of this was really like.
So here is this year’s mile marker:
