Push Me Around

I have just received from a colleague at work a fab 3 wheeler pushchair. The colleague no longer needs it as his next baby due in 3 months is going to be a girl, and the pushchair is blue. Words fail me! The pushchair is a forward facing, three wheeler type. My wife has made it clear to me that if we do have a pushchair at all it would need to be rear facing – and that "not at all" seems more likely – but dear reader…its lovely in all the ways things shouldn’t be as the "eco father-to-be". It's chrome and shiney and synthetic – and I love it!!

Last night I watched the programme "Goodnight Sweetheart". For those not familiar with the series, it involves someone who has a portal between modern day and war torn Britain during the Second World War; this results in him meeting his son in the 20th (it's quite an old series!) Century, who is by now older than he is, and a down-on-his-luck alcoholic. He is racked with guilt about how his son's life could have turned out this way; how he could have failed him as a father. He goes back through the time rift and sets up a trust fund for his son. On returning to the 20th Century that afternoon, his son appears in his shop, this time wearing a suit, married with children and having made a success of his life, which he puts down to the start his dad gave him in life with his trust fund.

As I watched it I, of course, being over-emotional, found myself in tears. I know its not that easy, that it’s a huge simplification of things, that money doesn’t buy happiness etc, but I am so scared that I will fail my child.

When I look at my own past, and I think of the impact actions on my part or the part of others had, the ramifications of them still echo today. When I was 15 years old I was expelled from school for drug dealing. Unable to get into any other school I sat at home all day on my own, my mother at work. My parents were already divorced. My father died within a year, my grandfather had died a few weeks before. My life was, at that young age, already in tatters. Don’t get me wrong I came out the other side of it, I survived and, by the grace of God, I escaped the early grave that my older brother ended up in. With God it is possible to rewrite the future if not the past..but I turn my thoughts to my child-to-be; will I be a better parent than my parents were to me all those years ago?

When you carry a child or when you push a child in a pushchair, it is your hand that determines the direction they travel in. Yes, they may veer off course, there may be bumps in the road, and eventually they will walk on their own, but for at least a while it will be you – it will be me and my wife who set the direction for our child.

Will I be able to support my baby, help give the foundation that will stop him/her going off the rails, show love which will they will know is unconditional? I am so so scared that I will mess it all up; I wouldn’t wish the life I have led on anyone. In my youth I thought that having a child was the most selfish thing in the world to do – bringing someone into this world to live and die and suffer was the ultimate selfish act. Yet, we are designed to want to have children, and God created humanity aware of the suffering that would be experienced, but deciding that the suffering is worth the joy.

Lord God, let the joy outweigh the suffering, the good times outweigh the bad, help me be the father I should be, put your hand on my wife and baby, look on them with favour, not because I am a faithful servant, but in spite of who I am and the things I have done.

Yours as ever,

The Broken Man

Sling Low, Sweet Chariot

The long suffering wife and I have begun the long discussions about baby transportation devices. Any men out there reading this will immediately have a certain picture in their minds – an all terrain buggy, with alloy wheels, suspension, and, if possible, a turbo button. This is like buying a car, just very slightly cheaper. Of course, being of a financially limited disposition actually this is more a matter of what pushchairs other friends have brought and are now prepared to give us…until, of course, slings were mentioned.......

Apparently the “king” of slings is the Didymus sling and this allows close contact between mother and baby etc. Well, okay, that’s fine, and I can wear it too and that’s all good. So £20? £30? No. £70 for a piece of fabric. Don’t get me wrong, a piece of fabric with buckles, with clever attachments, I could understand, but no, this is just a pice of fabric with instructions on how to tie it (apparently a table cloth is NOT the same thing - I fail to understand why!).

Dear reader I am not the most co-ordinated of people. I change my shirt a couple of times a day having spilt food down it. The idea of strapping a child to my front seems a little foolhardy at best. To make matters worse, you have to tie the sling thing. The knot slips and the baby's a goner! After much persuasion, and the concession that I can have a preformed sling thing, it has been agreed, no pushchair. Well, at least I can be involved in choosing a cot…well, no, actually…co-sleeping. Now I was not a fan of this idea at all. The likelihood of me rolling over onto and crushing it seems high! However, 15 journal articles later and it seems that this is indeed the best way to go…

So thoughts and experiences of it…and men out there having gone through this game?

Yours as Always,

The Broken Man