by Matt Coyne
I don’t feel like this. I mean, I feel inadequate, but I don’t feel bad about it. The baseline of expectation for dads really is so much lower than it is for moms. There is considerably less pressure to be an über-parent when you happen to have a penis. No one expects men to bake, in kitten heels, while teaching a baby “phonics.” Men get credit for just generally being around and quietly high-five themselves for being the kind of guy who changes a diaper. (Yes, it’s 2018; yes, it’s ridiculous; yes, it’s true.)
But Lyns, and every other mom I have ever spoken to, has felt this specter of inadequacy at some point, and felt it keenly. A sense that they are failing their little one, or that they should be finding the whole thing . . . easier. And it’s nonsense. A nonsense that can all be traced back to this high ideal of the perfect parent. A bullshit fantasy.
I have no idea what the answer is—how not to fall for this particular lie. I suppose the only thing parents can do is to try not to measure themselves against anything other than the happiness of their own family. If it’s a celebrity mom you imagine when you conjure the image of the perfect parent, imagine too the area outside the flimsy set and the entourage of nannies and makeup artists required to make a celebrity mom look as if parenting is a breeze.
And those noncelebrity “friends” and acquaintances who perpetuate the myth with the smoke and mirrors of their own closely cropped photos? Try not to judge them too harshly. As annoying as they may be, they deserve your pity. Maintaining an illusion like this is tough, and they are lost in the myth themselves.
REVELATIONS V: IN FACT, EVERYONE IS A SHIT PARENT
Maybe I’m wrong and there is such a thing as the Perfect Parent. But, if there is, no one can agree on what the fuck one looks like. So who cares? In fact, no one can quite agree on what it is to be a good parent, let alone a perfect one. You may be reading this thinking: Well, I know I am a good parent. And maybe you are and maybe you’re not. I’m not really in a position to comment. But one thing that I am absolutely certain of is that you are a bad parent. In fact, you are a terrible parent.
. . . According to somebody.
In 2015, fashion chimps Dolce and Gabbana gave a magazine interview in which fashion chimp number one, Dolce, commented about the wrongness of same-sex parenting. He said that “the only family is the traditional one,” and that IVF children were just “children of chemistry” and “synthetic.”
Don’t get me wrong: Who gives a fuck what Dolce or Gabbana thinks about anything? They make clothes. And listening to their opinions on IVF is like paying close attention to what Topshop thinks about stem-cell research.
But there is something striking about these comments: they are opinions about whether someone is fit to be a parent before their little one is even born—a declaration that a parent (or a child) can be good or bad before a sperm has even met an egg. And isn’t that an incredible thing? That you can be judged a bad parent when your baby is nothing more than an idea?
The point being, if it’s possible to be judged as a parent when your baby is just a thought, it is little wonder that once parents have their baby in their arms, they can find themselves under siege from opinions suggesting that they themselves are “bad parents.”
The Dolce and Gabbana example is an extreme one, but it’s not just gay parents or the parents of IVF babies who face these judgments. We all do. You could be as straight as it’s possible to be, your little one “naturally conceived” outside a lab and against the back wall of a shed. It doesn’t matter; there is no escape. There is always a reason why you are unfit to be a parent.
I myself have had a number of people pointing out the reasons why I am unfit. I’m sure you are gripping this book a little harder in shock, but, yes, even me. (Actually, when you blog about this sort of stuff, it tends to invite this kind of opinion. I can’t say I mind. I’ve come to collect these odd messages like badges: little reminders that the world is full of lovably acidic piss-monkeys.)
So, for the record, here are one or two examples of messages I’ve received letting me know why I am a bad parent. (Along with my responses.)
I am too sweary:
I am too stupid:
I am contributing to climate change?
Yeah, I’m not daft. I didn’t reply to that one. But I did send him this picture of me wearing a tinfoil hat:
And, finally, I am too old:
These are just a few examples. But of all the many reasons I have heard for why I’m a bad parent, the age one is the most interesting, and it’s also the one I hear most often. Just to clarify: as I write this, I’m forty-two, not the same age as Yoda. I’m not sitting at home watching Murder, She Wrote with a blanket on my legs, banging on about the war. But for a sizable number of commentators, forty seems to be some sort of cutoff point, beyond which apparently you’re just too close to death to be a parent.
I even had a woman commenting that forty was definitely too old to be a parent because, “as a teacher,” she’d seen the heartbreak caused “when an older parent dies, leaving the school-age child devastated.” Well, I hope this woman doesn’t teach fucking math. Because, by my reckoning, if I live to the average age of eighty-five, Charlie will be forty-odd by the time I cark it. So if he’s still in school and in short trousers then, he’s got bigger problems.
The truth is that, as a parent, there is no escape from petty judgments. For these people, I am too old to be a good dad—and while you may be in the flush of youth, for some of these broken, bitter few, you will no doubt be too young or too poor, too easygoing or too cautious, too married, too unmarried, too gay, too mumsy or too unmumsy, too disorganized or too obsessive, maybe you work or maybe you don’t work, etc., etc. No one is immune. Make no mistake: someone somewhere thinks you are a bad parent.
Not to worry.
The logic of most of these opinions is enough to make your brain cry. And if you come across someone who measures a parent not by their care and love, but by their age, gender, bank balance, or sexuality, by whether their child is IVF, or whatever, then you’re most likely dealing with a dribbling idiot, a person capable of all the considered thoughtfulness of a potato.
These attitudes seem like simplistic views of parenthood, but the really idiotic thing? The truth is actually so much more simple, and every shred of evidence proves it: all of this stuff is irrelevant. If you love and care about your kid, the chances are that they will become the best of you. If you don’t, they won’t.
That’s it.
So link arms with the bad parent to your left, take the hand of the shitty parent to your right, and with one voice tell the “someone somewheres” that they are welcome to go fuck themselves. And as for Greg, you, sir, can kiss my aging balls.
REVELATIONS VI: THE MYSTERY AND THE MADNESS
Twelve months ago, the night before Charlie was born, I had a dream: I dreamed that I was a soldier riding into battle, completely naked, and on the back of a large, inflatable duck. I think my subconscious was basically taking the piss about how unprepared I was for the new arrival.
It turns out my subconscious was absolutely right and the inflatable-duck dream quite prophetic. I really wasn’t prepared. For any of it.
And so when I hear other parents talk about how their first year of parenthood just flew by, I wonder if they are lying or are suffering from some sort of post-traumatic stress and have blanked out what actually happened.
For me, the last year hasn’t flown by at all. It’s been the longest year of my life.
A year ago I had a few wrinkles, a few gray hairs, and now I’m aging so fast that by the time Charlie’s ten years old I’m going to look a lot like Gandalf’s balls. I have the back of a 120-year-old Japanese woman. My hair is thinning, and I have bags under my eyes that look like a bloodhound’s weekly shopping. And if I remember to shave and shower in the same day, I consider that a day of singular triumph.
Aside from my physical wreckage, I am also mentally coming apart at the seams. I am so sleep-deprived tha
t I still occasionally hallucinate that my long-dead great-grandma Rose is taking a shit in our downstairs bathroom. And this lack of sleep, coupled with poor diet and the ongoing nightmare of kids’ TV, means that my mind is basically Play-Doh. And, on a day-to-day basis, without caffeine I am incapable of anything more complicated than blinking or scratching my arse.
So after an entire year as a parent, I find myself changed. But the main way in which I’m changed is that I’m happier. It sounds dopey, after all this, to put it so simply. But when Charlie made his entrance, and we eyed each other suspiciously that very first time, I wasn’t expecting to be quite so taken with our little human. I didn’t realize that I would become so superglue-attached, or quite so enthusiastic and proud when he laughs or waves or does something else that, objectively, isn’t that earth-shatteringly impressive but feels like it is.
The past twelve months have been baffling, humbling, exhausting, terrible, and ideal. I’d love to say that I’ve learned a great deal, but that would be a lie. I still don’t know whether swaddling is a good or a bad thing, how to keep Charlie’s socks on for more than a nanosecond, or how to stop a baby, mid-change, from dipping a hand in his own crap like it’s tapas.
But that’s okay.
Apparently, Thomas Moore once said: “It is only through mystery and madness that the soul is revealed,” and maybe that’s true.
The one thing of importance that I have learned in the past year is actually something just as profound:
When it comes to Charlie and his mom, I would ride into battle, naked, and on the back of a large inflatable duck . . . without hesitation.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Does anyone ever read this bit? I’m not sure anyone ever reads this bit. I never read this bit. In future I think I will though, because it’s only now that I come to write this bit that I realize how important it is. This book wouldn’t exist without the help and support of a bunch of people . . . and if it did exist, it would be about seven pages long and consist mainly of doodles of me bashing my head against the floor.
I need to thank my agent at A. M. Heath, Euan Thorneycroft—who has the surname of a heartless, Dickensian slum landlord but is actually a thoroughly decent fella. I can’t thank him enough for guiding me through the publishing process with good humor and beer and for taking on my sorry ass in the first place. Thank you to the family Wildfire: my UK editor Alex Clarke, Kate Stephenson, and part human/part firework Ella Gordon. Thank you all so much for helping to turn the musings of an idiot into something that looks an awful lot like a book. And thanks too to all at Headline: Caitlin Raynor, Jo Liddiard, and Frances Gough. A truly formidable marketing team fueled in part by Moscow Mules and Herman ze German takeaway sausage.
A very special thank-you to all at Scribner —Nan Graham, Colin Harrison, Roz Lippel, Brian Belfiglio, Jaya Miceli, Ryan Raphael, Jill Putorti, Dan Cuddy, Hailey Rutledge, and Sally Howe—and in particular to my mighty US editor and champion, the incomparable Valerie Steiker. It is often said that the US and the UK have a “special relationship,” but if it ever breaks down the American government should appoint Valerie to be its ambassador to Britain. Her enthusiasm, patience, and good humor during the whole process of bringing Man vs. Baby from the UK to the US has made the ocean between us seem like a pesky puddle. I can only apologize for teaching her profanities that no woman of her charm and distinction should know.
A huge thank-you to my friends and family. In particular, Lyndsay’s mom and dad, who dropped everything countless times to help out with Charlie when I was on deadline. Ron, Lorraine, I cannot express my gratitude strongly enough for everything you do. And thank you too to my little sis, Jo, and her man, Paul, for their own babysitting duties, and their persistent enthusiasm and encouragement. Of course, thank you to my mum, who not only taught me the value of books but is responsible for selling more copies of this one than anyone . . . banging on about it to anyone who would listen. She is a proud mum but also a pragmatist. In her own words: “Look, Matthew, if you have a successful writing career, maybe I can look forward to a room in a nursing home with a window and not one that smells of urine and cabbage.” She dreams big, my ma.
When it comes to acknowledging Lyns’s and Charlie’s role in all this, “thank you” is an inadequate expression of the gratitude I feel for this last year. Lyndsay, Charlie: the good bits in this book, the bits that are heartfelt and the best of me . . . those bits are yours. I will indeed love you until my spine is dust.
Finally I want to say a massive, genuine thank-you to all of you who follow and comment and contribute to Man vs. Baby. It’s largely down to you lot that I was given this opportunity in the first place, and I will be forever in your debt. . . . I promise, if we ever meet in person, I will buy each and every one of you a drink.I I have had the privilege over this past year of sharing not just my own experience of becoming a parent but also sharing in yours. And through that experience, I’ve come to realize that there are many, many parents out there who are trying to raise their kids to be smart and funny and fair, tolerant and good . . . and to not be total fucking dicks to one another. Because of that, you make me feel overwhelmingly positive about dispatching my own tiny human into a sometimes uncertain future. And I thank you for that more than anything.
Matt Coyne, Sheffield, UK
(I’ve put the location because I always think it makes it sound like the author is slowly and with satisfaction laying down a quill and staring wistfully into the distance. In reality, as I write this last word I’m sitting in the Sheffield city center branch of Starbucks, eating a cream horn and wondering whether to tell a chap standing outside the window that a bird’s just shit in his hood.)
* * *
I. (Not in any way legally binding.)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MATT COYNE is a fortysomething-year-old graphic designer from Sheffield, England. In September 2015, Matt’s life was turned upside-down by the arrival of his first child, Charlie. After three months of fatherhood, he logged on to Facebook and wrote about his experience of suddenly having to live with “a furious, sleep-murdering, unstable and incontinent, breasts-obsessed midget lodger.” Within days, his post about surviving the first few months of parenthood became a viral sensation and was shared all over the world. He continues to impart his parental triumphs and disasters on his blog, Man vs. Baby.
Facebook: /manversusbaby
Instagram: manversusbaby
Twitter: @mattcoyney
www.man-vs-baby.co.uk
MEET THE AUTHORS, WATCH VIDEOS AND MORE AT
SimonandSchuster.com
Authors.SimonandSchuster.com/Matt-Coyne
@ScribnerBooks
We hope you enjoyed reading this Simon & Schuster ebook.
* * *
Get a FREE ebook when you join our mailing list. Plus, get updates on new releases, deals, recommended reads, and more from Simon & Schuster. Click below to sign up and see terms and conditions.
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP
Already a subscriber? Provide your email again so we can register this ebook and send you more of what you like to read. You will continue to receive exclusive offers in your inbox.
Scribner
An Imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
Certain names have been changed.
Copyright © 2017 by Matt Coyne
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Scribner Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
First Scribner trade paperback edition April 2018
Originally published in Great Britain in 2017 as Dummy by Wildfire, an imprint of Headline Publishing Group
SCRIBNER and design are registered trademarks of The Gale Group, Inc., used under license by Simon & Schuster, Inc., the publisher of this work.
/> For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or [email protected].
The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.
All images courtesy of Matt Coyne
Interior design by Jill Putorti
Cover design by Pete Garceau
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Coyne, Matt, author.
Title: Man vs. baby : the chaos and comedy of real-life parenting / by Matt Coyne.
Other titles: Dummy
Description: New York : Scribner, [2018]
Identifiers: LCCN 2017061761 | ISBN 9781501187414 (tp)
Subjects: LCSH: Fatherhood. | Fatherhood—Humor. | Parenting. | Parenting—Humor.
Classification: LCC HQ756 .C69 2018 | DDC 306.874/2—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017061761
ISBN 978-1-5011-8741-4
ISBN 978-1-5011-8743-8 (ebook)