Click here to view the embedded video.

Without further ado, here is the full manuscript, with full permission to print at will and hand out to expecting dads everywhere as they show up at those baby showers ready to load all the loot into the too-small car. Hand it to them tucked into the pages of their favorite hobby magazine, with instructions to keep it in their wallet right next to that picture of their wife when she was less…..bloated.

Thanks, Tenley, for such a comprehensive list, and for saving the asses of all the wise men who heed your words.

~Heather and the rest of the get born staff.

Post Part-Him
By Tenley French

Dads, this one is for you.

Remember when the fog lifted, if only for a time, as you grasped the only acceptable response to that notorious question, “Do I look fat?”

If you slept through that query, or found yourself only half-listening, “Mmmm-hun…go on,” the answer is always, unequivocally, without hesitation, “No.” I don’t care if she is dangling out of that tank-top and now wears her wedding dress size times ten, it is still NO.

NO. NO. NO. NO. NO.

Remember those wedding vows. You may have missed this part, but you agreed to this job description when you said, “I do.” One of the most crucial skill sets of your field is never letting your beloved even consider the possibility that she looks fat.

Even if you passed that matrimonial test standing up you’d better sit down before you crack open the thousand page test manual is ‘PARENTHOOD’. Whether you’re a first time dad – still smirking at the image of that ridiculous male model carrying the infant on the cover of the baby Bjorn package – or you’ve made it past round one and you’re trying the sling on for size, you no doubt suspect that the first few months of fatherhood present a unique challenge. Yes, there’s the crying and the sleeplessness and bodily discharge wherever you go, but there are books to prepare you for all that. What they fail to address are the non-verbalized and unrealized expectations of your postpartum wife.

The following tips summarize six years of informal surveys (i.e. private conversations) between me, a mother of three, and many friends…who also have many babies. That makes many, many, many babies. Here are my top ten suggestions for bracing a new mom that aren’t listed in one of those pamphlets crammed inside one of your gratuitous, untouched medical binders.

1. Repeat after me: “Take the drugs, honey.”

You’re in the delivery ‘suite’ and starting to second guess your mate’s fortitude to have a natural birth. She certainly looks uncomfortable…and…well…she’s screaming for relief. Fortunately, it’s not up to you. Let those nurses get involved. In my case, that sounded like, “If we administer the epidural now, we’ll be shoving a needle in your back as the baby is crowning.” You just position yourself behind her other shoulder, telling her what she wants to hear. Don’t be the voice standing in between her excruciating misery and relief. The paid medical staff can do that. If she ends up taking your advice, she won’t feel any guilt on your behalf. And if she toughs it out, you can smother her with praise and affirmation. Actually, you should smother her with praise and affirmation no matter what, but up until then, be the voice of least resistance.

2. Cultivate the lost art of rephrasing.

Think back to that premarital class on constructive arguing or thumb through a parenting guide with teenagers. When you have nothing to add to her discourse, or minimal desire to involve yourself in her internal debates, active listening is all it takes. You don’t even have to agree. When she embarks on a lengthy analysis of that day’s naps, feedings or diaper contents, take a sampling of frequently-used words, tack the phrase, “So, you think that…” on the beginning and raise your voice at the end of the statement. “So, you think little Connor’s going to have to sleep in our bed until the cat dies because you’re worried that she’ll curl up on his helpless face and smother him?”

3. Repeat after me: “Take the drugs, honey.”

Now that you’ve practiced this line, you may as well get more use out of it. And, I’ve seen far too many girlfriends suffer silently through post-partum depression. Again, it’s not as if she can skip down to the neighborhood pharmaceutical and pick out an antidepressant of her choice, so let her doctor decipher the symptoms, determine her severity level and prescribe the necessary aids. You know your wife, and when her mood is especially dark or not letting up, show her that you are not only concerned, but you have some practical advice. This way she won’t worry about letting you down by asking for help and it might just make the difference between enjoying and enduring.

4. Paint the town pink (or blue, as may apply).
Many first time‘ers don’t realize, until it’s too late, that becoming a parent doesn’t have to mean becoming a recluse. Newborns sleep anywhere through almost anything. Some even prefer noisy chaos. My son snoozed obliviously as his two older sisters arranged plastic grocery bags filled with Barbie paraphernalia around him in preparation for their “trip to Mexico.” So, encourage your wife to wear the lowest cut blouse in her closet and make reservations at your favorite restaurant. Let the older children ‘go to Mexico’ in the basement, under the vigilant supervision of a babysitting border guard.

5. Never forget: your daughter is the most beautiful baby you have ever seen.

Make remarks to that effect hourly. It doesn’t matter if her skull is shaped like a tear-drop, her nose is speckled with hundreds of white-heads and her skin is yellow. Every father’s daughter is the most gorgeous baby ever to offer her tiny, un-trimmed finger for wrapping him around. What did you think you were signing amid all that hospital discharge paper work? Within that fine print was the commitment to assure your daughter that she is a lovely princess until the day she stands with another man in her wedding gown and he vows to never say she looks fat all the days of their lives.

6. Suggest by demonstration.

There will be days during those first three months that you arrive home to find your wife still in her pajamas, the answering machine blinking with thirteen unheard messages and the recently delivered milk curdling outside in the afternoon heat. You’ll wonder: what did she do all day? Hold your tongue, lest you say something you regret and have to return to suggestion number three (above). Instead, bring the milk in, listen to the messages and remark how beautiful the green in her fuzzy pajama socks makes her eyes look. She’ll recover her productivity again. In the meantime, measure the growth in your baby’s chubby thighs if you need to quantify what she accomplishes all day.

7. Acknowledge. Acknowledge. Acknowledge.

Because of her ability to provide nutritional sustenance for another human being at will, you may feel you’re off the hook in those dark, desperate hours of the inhumanely early morning. And you are. Provided you offer ample acknowledgement. Here are a few suggestive phrases, “You got up AGAIN with him! You are such a trooper.” “You are an amazing woman to be able to get up like that, over and over and over.” “Thanks, babe, for feeding our baby all those times last night. You’re incredible.” “He really loves you; no one can meet his needs like you can.” Or, if you’re just too sleepy when your wife comes back to bed for the third time, then try mumbling, “Heeeeyyyyy, eeeeehhhhhhh,” and, in her sleep depravation, she’ll misconstrue it as something encouraging. At the very least, get up and make her decaf in the morning.

8. Reassure your wife that your employers wouldn’t hesitate to hire a woman out of the work-force for a good year or ten.

Or, if she is going back to work sooner, that there is no such thing as “baby brain.” Motherhood makes you smarter. There are studies to this effect in mice. Trust me, I was once a scientist. And since my husband keeps reassuring me, I believe I will be one again someday.

9. Ask to hold your baby at every opportunity.

Maybe he cries every time you’re even in the room. Or he has yet to look you in the eye (which is typical of all newborns). And he sure as heck isn’t old enough to toss in the air. You may not have a handy chest-level, ready-made bottle to stick directly in his open, screaming mouth, but you can substitute a pacifier, lull him to sleep with your hypnotizing baritone, or suffer through it along-side your baby. Consider walking outside so your wife can’t hear the crying. She’s used to the baby’s tears, but you wouldn’t want her to see you that way.

10. Finally, the answer to the fat question: still no.

To both of your disdain, her belly still looks 20 weeks pregnant even though you’re holding the baby in your arms (and remembering tip number nine). Or, maybe she’s still working off those last ten ‘baby weight’ pounds…and your daughter just headed off to college. It doesn’t matter. Still no. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO.

Tenley has lived in Fort Collins since defecting from Texas almost twelve years ago. In addition to doling out unsolicited advice to unsuspecting fathers, she continues to refine the art of learning from her own mistakes with the help of her three small children and a sexy, supportive husband who always gets all the answers right….almost.

Corey is an essayist and freelance writer/editor who lives in Fort Collins, Colorado. Her passion for story translates to creative nonfiction, magazine features and public relations writing. She has been published about topics as diverse as luxury mansions and rugby leagues, mud pies and maternal guilt. Corey also loves telling astronomy legends while teaching the public to recognize constellations.

Corey and her husband, Charlie, parent two munchkins, who delight in streaking through the while house screeching. The family loves camping “off the grid” in the Cache la Poudre River Valley on Colorado’s northern front range. (Sounds pretty fantastic if you ask me!)

Corey began writing marketing copy for science programs and classes at Discovery Science Center, where she taught. She received enough encouragement about her creative descriptions to apply for and get an assistant editor job at a regional magazine. That publishing experience prepared her to freelance successfully while her youngest child is a toddler.

Corey got involved with this project, like many others, because of our commitment to donate proceeds from the sale of this book to charities benefitting children.

Corey is “currently writing a short story about a young mother whose isolation leads her to take risks.” See more of Corey’s writing at www.fortcollinswriter.com or www.getbornmag.com where she is a contributing editor.

The thoughts aired were compelling enough to continue the conversation here. We invited four parents and fans of the magazine to give us the benefit of their experiences.

Jen Parsons

Not on my watch. No sleepovers.

You just never know.

As a woman, I have experienced multiple inappropriate acts by men, as a child and an adult. Never molestation, never rape, but I think that being a woman practically guarantees that you will have experienced some incident in your lifetime that you can recall that made you feel ‘uncomfortable.’ I, along with countless others, never said a word. So when we are looking at statistics like, “Worldwide, 1 in 3 women will suffer some sort of sexual abuse or rape event in her life,” if we are honest with ourselves, and with each other, we might find that statistic actually is a farce, and the numbers are even more alarming.

Once, I wasn’t able to use my voice, but as I recover from semi-permanent laryngitis, I have learned to stand up for women suffering unspeakable atrocities and brutal rape by organizing a Run for Congo Women 5K. I may not have been capable of using my voice when I needed it, but I will use it now to start a conversation, and protect my children, even if that means I will be judged as an overprotective, hyper vigilant, helicopter Mom.

Jennifer Parsons, Mama Bear to two amazing children, is the founder of the Colorado Run for Congo Women, and blogs at www.theevolvinghomemaker.com

Sunda Friedman TeBockhorst

The need to balance a sense that the world is safe rushes in to compete with my knowledge – stuck fast with years of counseling those victimized by the untrustworthy – that you can’t trust people. As much as I don’t want my children to know this, to live this reality, they must, and they do. I hope to equip them with the skills to keep themselves safe, but it starts with me.

So my children won’t go. Even when I do know the family, my children likely will not go; while the professional in me knows familiar people are the greatest threat, the mom in me knows that they’re too young to act as caretakers of children in a crisis. Since this is what I would potentially be asking of them, I will wait until they are old enough to make a scene, be rude, get out. I will need to know that they are enough beyond early childhood to know when they don’t need permission to make decisions on their own behalf, and to trust that I will never be angry if they make people uncomfortable by screaming out their right to be the safe, happy children that they are.

Sunda Friedman TeBockhorst, M.A., L.P.C. is a therapist, a mother of two and a doctoral candidate at University of Northern Colorado.

Catherine Siebel

A number of GB readers are so emphatically against sleepovers that they have instituted a permanent “no-sleepover policy”. This flabbergasts me. Who in the HELL would purposely eliminate conjugal time with their spouses? Imagine! The martinis! The brief-but-satisfying-sex-leading-to-dreamless-sleep-until-oh-my-god-8-a.m.!

When my rational “adult” brain takes over from the liquor- and sleep-first mentality, my flabbergastation remains. Forbidding your children from doing anything that has a chance of being dangerous does everyone a disservice. It doesn’t give kids the tools to deal with new situations. It sends the message that most people can’t be trusted (even though, contrary to the insidious Datelines of the world, most people can). It gives parents a false sense of security (the safest thing you could actually do for your child would be to institute a “no-car policy”). And to repeat, because it’s the most important –it doesn’t give them the tools to deal with new situations. These children will become adults. They will encounter situations that parents can neither predict nor control. Let them grow into themselves. Let them choose manhattans over martinis, if they want.

Catherine Siebel is on the sociology faculty at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago. At home she is a big fan of sleepovers, martinis, and manhattans.

And just when you thought you had your plan figured out… here’s a monkey wrench from a dad of recent teenagers.

Scott James

Evolution of the “sleep” over

“Sally, I found a condom wrapper in your trash.”

“I put it at the bottom!”

“And when I dumped it out…”

“Oh, yeah…”

“Maybe you should empty your own trash, ya think?”

Sleepovers sure have changed during the past 20 years. We used to worry about nervous kids, sick kids, a random bedwetting, the standard letting-go stuff. It’s hard to let your babies be away from you those first few times. The trust issues, the start of independence, the fitting in stuff…all positive-growth opportunities, but still a little challenging.

Eventually though, you come to celebrate those sleepovers, especially as you learn to trust your kids and the families.

“Date night, baby, where do you want to go? Oh, you want to order in? I’ll get some wine, lots of wine.”

But believe me; you’re just getting warmed up. The sleepovers continue but acceptance issues are the last thing on your mind.

“Sally, what were you two doing up in the cabin?’

“Nothing.”

“Wrong answer….”

After a few conversations about STDs (children being the hardest ones to get rid of and most expensive), you eventually go through another stage of acceptance.

“Hey Billy, how many breakfast burritos should I order?”

Scott James is an empty-nesting parent in Fort Collins.

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