(Note: This was originally written in August of 2011, and hence may seem dated regarding Will's mobility, if you know us personally)
As a new father I feel I have a pretty good hold on how mind-numbingly terrifying it can be to have another human being entirely dependent on you and your talents for survival.
My daily amount of anxiety, working the job I do with the requirements it entails, was crushing enough already. Now that my wife and I have progeny, it’s infinitely worse. Before marriage, my mistakes impacted me and me alone. This lead to a veritable lack of any and all responsibility or forethought with regard to, well… anything, really.
After marriage, I realized that my responsibility (or lack thereof) now impacted my wife equally, if not more so, than it did myself. And yet, as an adult who could easily take care of herself in dire circumstances, much of her risk was mitigated.
With my son, however, I finally had no option for such flippant disregard or buck-passing and was forced to finally face the full weight of my burden. I am responsible for a life, and there is no two ways about it.
Throughout the first nine months of my son’s life (and we'll call him "Dude" from now on), the baseline anxiety I felt as a result of parenting was always there, buzzing around me like a pack of so many mosquitoes. And yet recently I've noticed my anxiety level escalating, and as such tried to pinpoint what, exactly, was the cause for my increased tension. Dude’s advancing mobility, I’ve decided, is to blame.
For the first few months of his life, Dude had the sum-total mobility of a sandbag. If I was in charge of him for an evening and decided there was something pressing that had to be done, I could simply lay and/or sit him down anywhere and go about my business, confident in the fact that he couldn’t wiggle away because he, quite literally, couldn’t yet wiggle. Fast forward to today, and Dude is crawling. This presents an innumerable amount of issues. Now, I can’t set him anywhere for fear that he’ll A) disappear, B) fall off of any raised surface in the room, or C) cram whatever dirty piece of trash happens to be sitting around into his mouth.
With all this in mind, I felt the need to model out my anxiety as a function, with inputs related to my child’s mobility. This came from my professional background as a financial analyst, my proficiency with Excel, and my inherent, deep-seeded nerdyness.
So, without further ado, I present you with an equation for “Anxiety as a Function of Child Mobility.” Feel free to use to impress your friends, laugh with your partner, and quantify the oppressive dread that is innately associated with the raising of offspring.
As a new father I feel I have a pretty good hold on how mind-numbingly terrifying it can be to have another human being entirely dependent on you and your talents for survival.
My daily amount of anxiety, working the job I do with the requirements it entails, was crushing enough already. Now that my wife and I have progeny, it’s infinitely worse. Before marriage, my mistakes impacted me and me alone. This lead to a veritable lack of any and all responsibility or forethought with regard to, well… anything, really.
After marriage, I realized that my responsibility (or lack thereof) now impacted my wife equally, if not more so, than it did myself. And yet, as an adult who could easily take care of herself in dire circumstances, much of her risk was mitigated.
With my son, however, I finally had no option for such flippant disregard or buck-passing and was forced to finally face the full weight of my burden. I am responsible for a life, and there is no two ways about it.
Throughout the first nine months of my son’s life (and we'll call him "Dude" from now on), the baseline anxiety I felt as a result of parenting was always there, buzzing around me like a pack of so many mosquitoes. And yet recently I've noticed my anxiety level escalating, and as such tried to pinpoint what, exactly, was the cause for my increased tension. Dude’s advancing mobility, I’ve decided, is to blame.
For the first few months of his life, Dude had the sum-total mobility of a sandbag. If I was in charge of him for an evening and decided there was something pressing that had to be done, I could simply lay and/or sit him down anywhere and go about my business, confident in the fact that he couldn’t wiggle away because he, quite literally, couldn’t yet wiggle. Fast forward to today, and Dude is crawling. This presents an innumerable amount of issues. Now, I can’t set him anywhere for fear that he’ll A) disappear, B) fall off of any raised surface in the room, or C) cram whatever dirty piece of trash happens to be sitting around into his mouth.
With all this in mind, I felt the need to model out my anxiety as a function, with inputs related to my child’s mobility. This came from my professional background as a financial analyst, my proficiency with Excel, and my inherent, deep-seeded nerdyness.
So, without further ado, I present you with an equation for “Anxiety as a Function of Child Mobility.” Feel free to use to impress your friends, laugh with your partner, and quantify the oppressive dread that is innately associated with the raising of offspring.
Where:
A = Total Anxiety
M = The Mobility of your child, with regard to the following scale:
- No mobility: Your child is a sandbag
- Swinging Arms and Legs: Your child is an egg beater duck taped to the counter
- Rolling Over: Your child is a fish pulled up onto a dock, flopping around like mad
- Crawling: Your child is a mildly brain damaged lion stalking prey through tall grass
- Running: Your child is an amalgamation of a perpetual motion machine, a pirate with half a wooden leg, and a wrecking ball
F = The Familiarity you, as a parent, have with your current surroundings, with regard to the following scale:
- Totally familiar: You're in your own home
- Mildly familiar: You're at the local kid-friendly restaurant
- Mildly unfamiliar: You're at a Toys-R-Us in another state
- Totally unfamiliar: It's dark out and there's broken glass everywhere
S = The Sex of your child, based on the following scale:
- Your child is a Girl: Flowers and Sunshine
- Your child is a Boy: You're screwed
N = The numerical order of this child relative to any other children you have. E.G., if this is your second child: “2”
You'll note that, under the right conditions (Running mobility, totally unfamiliar surroundings, male, first child) the function maximizes at 10. If you hit this benchmark, good luck. On the flipside, the function minimizes to 0. But only if you don't have kids.
Hooray parenting!
T.A.
You'll note that, under the right conditions (Running mobility, totally unfamiliar surroundings, male, first child) the function maximizes at 10. If you hit this benchmark, good luck. On the flipside, the function minimizes to 0. But only if you don't have kids.
Hooray parenting!
T.A.
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