From Palm Trees to Potty Training: A Dad’s Journey
July 15, 2004
by Brendon McCullin

Six weeks. I can now officially say how long it takes for a life – or my life anyway – to be completely turned upside down.

Six weeks ago I was living in Los Angeles and working behind a desk on the lot of a major movie studio. Now I’m halfway across the country in Kalamazoo, Michigan so that my wife can be closer to her parents and I can become the primary care giver for our 18-month-old son.

Six weeks ago I was looking at the production schedules for this year’s television pilots. Now I’m discussing the cultural impact of “Bob the Builder” and “Dora the Explorer” with a toddler who only understands every other word and only pays attention to half of those.

Six weeks ago I might take a break and stroll through film crews to get a grande mocha latte from Starbucks. Now there is no such thing as a break and I’m more likely to run after my son to stop him from swallowing rocks.

Six weeks ago on any given day I might run into one of the actors from “ER” or “Friends.” Now I’m trying to make friends and hoping beyond hope to avoid any visits to the emergency room.

Six weeks ago I could quietly sit at my computer each weekday and type pages of text if I needed to. Now I can type approximately 3.5 words before my son starts tugging me away from the computer.

Thankfully I was one of those fathers who was able to take a leave from work when my son, Dean, was born, so I’ve spent weeks at a time where my primary focus was taking care of him. Funny thing about that – turns out newborns don’t move quite as much or anywhere near as quickly as toddlers do. Back then my son could barely turn his head from side to side. Now if I turn my head for an instant he makes a beeline for the next county.

My wife, who was the stay-at-home caregiver in Los Angeles, had an entire pregnancy to get used to the idea. Apparently there’s a lot of other things to think about while you’re pregnant – swelling body parts, nausea, joyfully looking forward to the excruciating pain of child birth, etc. – but from a guy’s perspective it seems like you’ve got a while to grow accustomed to what’s going on.

For me, the journey to home-based parent involved leaving my job, sending my family on ahead of me, packing up a home and then taking all of our possessions across the country in a just barely drivable moving van in those six weeks. By the time I arrived my son hadn’t seen me in a fortnight and I wasn’t sure what time zone I was in. For the first week, my son seemed certain that I was just some strange babysitter who would be dispatched the moment his mom walked back in the door and put an end to the madness. I look at that time as just one of the many life lessons on disappointment that I’ll be sharing with him over the years.

The biggest plus in all of this is getting to spend so much time with my son. I love being a father and I love being around him. As a writer, there’s something to be said for having the freedom to spend part of each day playing and making up games. If the ingeniousness of a toddler doesn’t inspire you, especially the way they’re able to spot the exact thing that you don’t want them to play with or the improbable way that they can stack various household items in order to get to the goods, then nothing will.

Still, until you’ve done it, it’s impossible to understand what goes into caring for a toddler all day by yourself. And I only have to try to pay attention to one. I can’t begin to imagine what it’s like to have two or three racing around. I’ve never been so thankful for a nap in my entire life, and I’m not even the one taking them.

When I was growing up, I watched lots and lots of television – “Leave It To Beaver,” “The Donna Reed Show,” “Happy Days” – and the mothers on those shows certainly never seemed to be that harried. Sure I’ve read all of the new books on parenting, since that’s what you do these days while your wife is pregnant, but given the choice I almost always choose to believe television over some book. Now I’m left wondering just how much Prozac June Cleaver was taking.

I shower when I can. I shave when my wife gets sick of my beard. I do laundry with my son trying to steal clothes and throw them in the trash. I cook with him gaining first hand knowledge of which way my knees bend. I watch ESPN’s SportsCenter every morning for five minutes before the clamoring to put on a Disney video starts. I work when my son’s asleep.

I’m fully aware that there are millions of women that would hear this and think, “Yeah, buddy, welcome to my world.” That’s pretty much my wife’s reaction when she gets home at night. Well, to be honest, I’m actually happy to be living in their world and I look forward to the twists and turns my journey to become an enlightened male will take as I try to figure this all out.

After all, it’s got to get easier, doesn’t it? OK, you can all stop laughing now. I’ll find out for myself, for better or worse, soon enough.

(Brendon McCullin is a volunteer staff writer for 2 Walls Webzine)