3 Life Lessons From a 10 Month Old {A Guest Post By @DaddybyDefault}

Craig Grella is a serial entrepreneur, tech geek, author, and father who loves writing and blogging on topics like business, law, parenting, and entertainment. His blog, Daddy by Default, is a resource featuring cool stuff for stay-at-home dads. You can also find him changing diapers on twitter @daddybydefault.

Before my daughter was born I sought advice from every parent I knew. They all said the same thing: your life as you know it ends; you have no time for friends, you’ll never see another movie in a theater, car rides are miserable, plane rides are worse, and what little sleep you get will be interrupted by a crying, snotty, slobbering, dirty diaper baby. Then they would follow with, “it’ll be the best thing that ever happened to you!”

Sure, when they’re young, babies just eat, drink, cry and poop. When they start walking you need to watch them like hawks, and when they get older you have to worry about them dating a jerk. And maybe, in between, you get a few ugly ties for father’s day and a couple of lopsided mugs on your birthday. To me, the sacrifice seemed greater than what the parents got back, which is why I never understood how we could give up so much and be happier for it.

But after just ten months of being a dad I’ve come to realize what every one of those parents told me was true; I was happier than I’d ever been. Without speaking a single word, my daughter had reminded me of the mystery and wonder in life, and how everything around us contains magic.

In particular, she taught me three things which I believe have made me a better person.

Patience

One of the first things I learned from my daughter was patience. Normally, both my wife and I were consumed with work. We would come home after a long day at the office, scarf down dinner, and be back on email in under five minutes. But babies don’t care about your schedule, and feeding them is a much more time consuming and deliberate act. You have to clean the bottle, warm the milk, and feed her only an ounce at a time, stopping often to burp her, or suffer the consequences of gassy fussiness. Most times, feedings took more than an hour each. That was a big adjustment for me, but it forced me to slow down.

There’s not much to do when you’re feeding a baby, so you sit and think. I would reflect on my day; about the things I had done wrong, or about areas in my life where I could improve. Sometimes, I’d make a to-do list and when I did have some free time, instead of wasting it on movies or television, I would cross tasks off the list and get things done. Other times, I would just sit and watch my wife feed the baby, and we would talk about each other’s day, something we’d rarely stop to do in the past. Over time, our baby’s schedule came to more closely mirror our own, but we still take extra time around meals to sit and chat about our day, and to watch our daughter play. The time together has brought my wife and I closer, and our relationship has blossomed into something more meaningful that what we had before.

I also don’t find myself in as much of a rush as I used to be. I slowed down in the car, mostly because I want to be safer with the baby on board, but also because I’m enjoying the journey, not just getting to the destination.

Empathy

Anytime you get a few kids together, one of them is bound to have a melt down, and when he does, chances are, the rest of the babies will start crying too. Before long, it’s a scream fest and the parents are digging through diaper bags trying to find a clean teething toy to pacify their child. At first, I thought it might be the loud noise that makes the other babies cry; like maybe it was just too much for their little ears. But after studying the chain reaction in several settings, I noticed something interesting.

After the first baby starts crying, the others stop what they’re doing and look over to see what’s going on. The expression on their faces change to a blank, quizzical look, as if to ask that baby in their own silent language, “why are you crying?” Then, the babies look to their parents with that same quizzical look, this time asking “why aren’t you doing anything, can’t you see he’s in pain?” A few moments later, the blank stares turn into frowns and the silent ones start crying too. After seeing this in action a dozen times, it finally hit me. These teared up little toddlers are empathizing with the one in pain. They don’t know why he’s crying, but they recognize the hurt and suffering, and they feel it too.

It amazes me that my daughter can feel the pain of another baby just by looking into his eyes. I wonder when we, as adults, lost the ability to empathize with other people. When I see how a kind word can brighten someone’s day, I wonder wonder why the corporate world I came from confuses empathy with weakness, and why those who display it are rarely rewarded. I never took much time to think about other people and their situations, but now I take the time to stop and help the lady change her tire in the pouring rain; because I know without that help she might not make it home in time to feed her kid, or to talk with her husband, or to help her sick father.

Wonder

Comedian Ray Romano has a routine where he jokes about his kids, saying all he needs to do to entertain them for hours is to jiggle a ring of keys in front of them. I always laughed at that joke because it seemed so absurd, but I learned exactly what he meant one day when I gave my daughter an empty tissue box to play with.

First she batted it around between her hands. Then she fell to her back and pulled it to her stomach, and later she sat on the box and flattened it out. Then she would use it to slide across the floor, and eventually to chase the dog around the house. All the while she was absolutely captivated by that simple piece of cardboard. It didn’t have any blinking lights or play any catchy music, but to her it was the coolest toy in the world.

Babies look at everything with a sense of awe and wonder. Even the simplest things, which we take for granted, are new and amazing to babies. My daughter still laughs when we turn the lights on and off. She can’t figure out how it works, but she doesn’t need to. She just gets a kick out of the light turning into dark turning into light again. She doesn’t know how the ceiling fan works either, but that doesn’t stop her from looking at it for what seems like hours without blinking. She doesn’t know what a cell phone is, but it makes me smile when she recognizes her mom’s voice coming over the speakerphone.

Most of the time we only pay attention to the things that help us do our jobs, or to the people who can get us the stuff we want. There are so many interesting things out there, and if we stop for just a minute to look at them from a different angle – to spend a little more time with them than we normally would, I think we would all see much more beauty in the world.

Patience, empathy, and wonder. Three things my daughter taught me, and I’m glad she did, because the world is a much more beautiful place now than it was just a few months ago.

Be Sociable, Share!

• 

Tagged as: lessons we learn as a parent, life lessons, our kids as teachers