Being a parent is a secret code, not sacred self.

There are still interesting expectations connected to fatherhood, motherhood, parenthood. After L’s birth, I felt a certain sense of maturity growing. Much of that is certainly just the growing additional responsibility I now have. But behind that feeling also lurked some sacred idea of how being a father makes you a Real Man. Glimpses of that flash up when I’m around certain other people, especially from my parents’ generation. It seems to help to bridge the divide between generations. “Well, those Millennials don’t have real jobs, but at least when it comes to children they are real parents”—said no-one ever, but I’m still projecting it. (Flinching of course while thinking of my single, single-mother, polyamorous, or queer friends.)

The problem with the idea of such a consecration is that even watching your child being born is too worldly an event to be a passage into a new form of being. You don’t stop being yourself. Quite the opposite, the lack of time and sleep makes it even more likely your old self awakens time and again to deal with the stress in proven old ways. Over time, I realized that any big sudden transformation was less about my psychology and more about the relationships I had with others, about social identities and social roles. There are the new moments of instant connection in public. When an elevator doesn’t work and you exchange looks with another couple with stroller testing the escalator instead. When your own or another baby has a cutesy mini-meltdown in public and needs a boob. Once we met a dad who was waiting for a bus with his triplets. In the past I probably wouldn’t have even noticed him, now it was like meeting some kind of war hero (of postmodern social media wars, let’s say). I know this level of connection through other roles, being an expat, a musician, a photographer. No connection like seeing someone else schlep their bass down concrete stairs to catch a crowded train just in time. But the parent role is somewhat deeper as you now will never not be a parent. I wonder what other webs of connection are hidden around me. Being the only two women in a meeting of wannabe-alpha men? Being a member of a migrant minority? Having disabilities, being obese, being an olympic athlete, having the best ass in town, driving a Porsche?