Choose fatherhood: Babies are 'super fun' and not that hard

Fatherhood is wonderful, writes Nicholas Clairmont in The Free Press. His daughter, almost nine months old, taught him that having kids is "actually super fun, massively easier than anyone tells you, and so energizing and clarifying that if you are an ambitious person, you should have a kid out of pure personal selfishness."

Photo: Enes Alici/Pexels

Clairmont is a card-carrying member of the "striver" class, he writes. Raised in Manhattan, educated in an "uber-elite private school," he grew up in a world where the way to signal status is to brag about how busy you are, how hard you work, how stressful your life is.

To strivers, "the arrival of a baby is seen as a sort of disaster," Clairmont writes. Strivers agree that babies are cute. But they also think a baby "will bring unimaginable chaos and difficulty; as with a hurricane or an earthquake, one simply cannot be prepared enough."

Strivers delay parenthood, waiting until they have locked down the right job and enjoyed the right amount of travel and partying, he writes. By then, they're well into their 30's -- or older.

Journalist Christina Buttons tweeted: “I’ve always felt that having a child means your life ends and theirs begins."

Americans of all social classes are delaying parenthood. In part, that's because birth control is a lot better than it used to be. I think it's also related to the desire to prolong adolescence for an extra 10 years or so.

The average American mother now has her first child at the age of 27, Clairmont writes.  A 2017 Stanford study of paternal fertility found that 31 is now the average for fathers at their first child's birth. The average age for newborn’s father with a college degree is 33.3 years old.

Clairmont met his future wife when he was almost 30 and she was 24. They skipped the long striver dating period. By the time they were 31 and 25, they were married parents. He wasn't prepared for the joy.

My daughter . . . is learning to crawl and stand. She gets cuter all the time. She can make noises that sound like “dada” and “mama” now, though she is just babbling. Soon she is going to figure out how to mean words rather than just pronounce them, which is so cool.

"I expected to sort of grind out the first phase of parenthood and then eventually enjoy having a kid who could talk," Clairmont writes. He was surprised to discover he's a "baby guy." And he has male friends who are also ga-ga about their babies.

Yes, it takes time, he writes. But he has time. Now that he knows what's really important, he plans and prioritizes.

He doesn't mention how he and his wife divide the baby care, say commenters. Others say they must have an easy baby. (I had an easy baby. I recommend it.)

People who wait until their lives are perfect before having children are liable to wait a long time, and have fewer children or none at all. Those who think they must be perfect parents -- never saying "no" to kids is the latest insane twist on "gentle parenting" -- will make their lives a lot harder than necessary.

Being a father or mother does require you to grow up. Be an adult, or fake it. It's worth it.

Joe Nocera was a bad dad when he was in his 30s, he writes in The Free Press. His wife raised their three children, while he focused on his career and himself. He got a second chance when he became a father again at 59.