The Online Father

I certainly never imagined two years ago that I would be changing nappies and going "gooh ah" to an uninterested ball of tangled arms and legs! In fact should anyone have suggested such an occurrence I would have laughed at the very thought of it all! I imagined myself more of a distant sort of father, an upright figure in the background rather than a hands-on and fully-fledged care-giver to the needy!

Well, to be honest I thought about it all a bit too much. When we found out that my wife was pregnant it opened up a whole world of new thought! New dimensions transpired and split, paths and futures twisted and tangled together like the tracks at Clapham Junction! My wife took it all onboard like a slow moving scenic train as if she was the conductor. And I, like an aimless shunt car turned to the Internet for solace and some hopeful understanding and education on what to expect of the future!

The Internet opened up a whole world of possibilities but in hindsight my supposed education, my hopeful foray into the world of understanding babies, did not help me at all. In fact the information I gleamed filled me with dread and fear, a sense of impending disaster before my wife even showed a bulge. The Internet gives too much information too easily. Chat rooms and supposed experts have written reams upon reams covering every topic from the best type of nappies to use to "how to clean a baby's nose on the sly". Sadly though, the old saying that goes "the only bad news is good news", wins out and more-or-less every story or report that arrives on the desktop is the horror story from hell!

Upon entering the words "Breast Feeding" into a search engine I learnt that thrush is extremely dangerous and that parents should be wary as a hyper active baby recently took a bite bit out of his mother's nipple! (She had to have stitches and subsequently contracted thrush).

I also attempted to look at a baby's diet, to gain some clue as to what to feed him or her as I did not think a steak dinner would be ideal! Instead of finding a suitable list of foods that are ideal for a baby I arrived at dozens of websites with the complete opposite. The first one to hit me was about the deaths of many infants in Mainland China, a result of some poor quality milk powder. And after working through disaster and mayhem I arrived at the solution that breast milk was the only suitable way to go, until a steak dinner could be served! And then I started to worry about my wife being able to breast feed our future son/daughter for the required five years!

I can honestly and unashamedly admit that had I learnt all that I did before my wife was pregnant I would have pulled the plug on the future! I would have pushed for us to become a serious career couple, to adopt an already steak eating child or to purchase a robot instead. The news and information gleamed from the Internet was by far the most horrific horror movie I have ever watched, it is without doubt the worst nightmare I have ever suffered from and to me is like an intercity train coming at full speed and on my track!

During those weeks before birth I became a very troubled man. I had endless nightmares of cot deaths and of malformed and disfigured monstrosities laughing maliciously at me! I walked around in a constant daze, images of blue, green and red coloured babies jumping up and down on me and of babies popping out of my wife with mini wheelchairs in their hands! In fact I became jittery, extremely sensitive and very tired, so much so that my wife became seriously worried about the state of my mental health. I think she even went as far as regretting having a baby herself, I not being the sort of father that she thought I was going to be!

But the big day arrived and I did the father "thing" correctly. I bit my nails, sweated more than I should have, talked insanely about nothing and felt constantly sick whilst my wife held my hand to support me!

And this little perfect ball of flesh popped out, rather a strange colour and picture, but a healthy ten fingered and toed bundle that did not manage to twist itself around the umbilical and did not manage to get stuck or come out little toe first! In fact once cleaned up our son was perfect in every way imaginable.

I continued in my nervous state for a while longer! My new family soon repaired home. I flitted nervously around fluffing already fluffed pillows, checking our son's temperature every minute or so and jumping out of my skin in panic if he as much as moved his little toe! I annoyed my wife so much that she suggested that I take myself off to the pub and get gloriously drunk, the first time that she had ever suggested such a thing. Now, five months on I have settled down. I am much to my wife's relief, a normal and very self-assured father. I now have full confidence in my son's ability to cope with life and all that is put in his path - with his parents to guide him along the way!

I have stopped reading any literature on the subject, preferring to rely on instinct and good judgment, on my feelings and intuition, on common sense and inherent values. And should I or my wife ever get stuck on something, mother-in-laws are always a good source of sound advice; they did a good job not so long ago! We as a race do not give enough credit to our instincts and to our natural ability to do what is right. We don't listen to our parents enough and we certainly don't listen to our baby's as they are the best source of information regarding where we go wrong.

I for one will never ever again turn to the Internet for help or guidance and I condemn those authors and webmasters who have filled the internet with stories of dread and hurt for no apparent reason other than to have their names in the air. I for one have no wish to become a pessimistic nerve wracked mine of useless horror stories, living in dread every time my son blinks. I have no wish to fear every waking moment, assuming that crisis and death lurk around every corner.

My wife and I have a beautiful, strong and healthy baby, so let us and him enjoy life to its full. And should disaster strike: we have done our best and made the most of a life that we were so much apart of!

Ieuan Dolby
Author and Webmaster of SeaDolby.com
Copyright © Ieuan Dolby, April 2005