Irish Independent: Why I’ll Never Be Ready to Have Children

I had one of those moving father and son moments quite recently.  It was a month before my wedding and I was sitting with my dad, just the two of us, watching the telly.  It’s a rare opportunity that we get to bond on our own and with the auspicious occasion not far away, I asked him if he had any wisdom that he could pass on from his own 37 years of marriage.  He paused for a second, turned over to look at me.  “Never have kids”, he said, and turned back to the TV.  I’m still not sure that he was joking.

The weird thing is he might have been reading my mind.  I don’t really like babies.  Up until now this hasn’t been much of a problem; as a young man with no nephews and nieces I had a long stretch where I rarely came into contact with anything in a babygrow, and managed to avoid siring any of my own by a military-style obsession with contraception.  But in the space of two years I’ve suddenly found myself in the middle of an entire generation of ankle-biters.  In my close circle of friends alone, there have been 14 pregnancies in the past 24 months.  Every time someone has a barbeque these days I feel like Vin Diesel in the Pacifier.

It’s not so much kids in general that scares me, but more the idea of having my own.  Married, in a stable job and with a reasonable mortgage, you’d think at thirty-four I would be starting to come to terms with the idea of starting a family, but for some reason it’s never been a more terrifying prospect.  Being broke, saddled with a 24/7 dependency and having to deal with wildly unpredictable toilet trips?  I could get all that from a good old fashioned drink problem and I wouldn’t even have to do up the spare room.

It’s not just the personal sacrifices.  People change when they become parents.  They want you to think they’re the same cool hipsters they were before two turned into three, but they never are.  Parenthood brings a total lack of self-awareness.  I’m perfectly comfortable with women breast feeding in public, but I’ll be damned if you’ll ever see me wearing a papoose.  One of my old schoolmates is so in the glow of fatherhood that he walks around shamelessly in a t-shirt that says “Men who change nappies change the world”.  The first time I saw him wear it, I nearly vomited on his shoulder myself.

Yet all my friends were dying to start a family, and as soon as their children were born they were bouncing with enthusiasm.  Despite insomnia, no social life and an endless stream of shoulder vomit, they talk about their new roles with the fervour of a Knock pilgrim. “I just can’t put it into words”, gushed one of my mates Paul, as we toasted the birth of his son.  “It’s just the most amazing feeling ever, you’ve got to do it.  Anything else you’ve done in your life just becomes completely irrelevant”.  I felt like I was being sold shares in a pyramid scheme.

I tell myself I’m just not ready, but I’m starting to wonder if I ever will be.  I still play obscenely violent computer games until 3 in the morning.  I brush broken glass into the corner of the kitchen instead of actually sweeping it up.  I buy ridiculous things on credit like remote control boats and camera equipment I’ll never use.  These are not things that dads do.

Dads have a stick put aside for stirring paint.  They read the business section of the paper first.  Dads have money in the bank and actually care who is head of Fine Gael.  I still call my dad when I crash my car.

Despite everyone’s good-natured assertions to the contrary, I’m not sure if I will be a great father, but time is running out.  My saving grace is that I have a wife who is just as petrified as I am about the whole idea, so at least there are two of us in it.  Maybe the only way to really know is to throw caution to the wind and see what happens.  I’m still not wearing a papoose though.