What has impressed me the most about having a baby is the simplicity of the whole thing. Something that is simple is not necessarily easy, it can also require hard work, and it can also be exhausting, which is the case with having a baby. But it is nonetheless simple. 

While we were expecting, it was continuously brought up by family and friends how hard becoming a parent is. And it is true, it is very hard. But what I’ve come to realize a few months into the experience is that those words of advice that we got during the pregnancy did not reflect it as a whole. In other words, the people that we talked to did not describe the experience as what it really is, a process. 

It makes sense that we got only a partial description of what becoming a parent is for at least two reasons. The first is that most of the times that we discussed becoming a parent with friends and family we did so in a casual, social way, so it is understandable that no one gave us a dissertation on the topic. But there were some occasions in which we discussed the topic with certain people where we had a deeper conversation, and we still did not get the full picture.

My theory as to why it did not happen in those moments either, which is the second reason for not having heard a comprehensive description of how the process of becoming a parent goes, is that people have forgotten. Much in the same way that someone that is good at a sport can tell you about their journey up to the point where they currently are, a seasoned parent has a story that they can share. But the athlete (and the parent) will most likely have forgotten how they went from having no idea how to play the sport to the point where the sport per se became second nature, and they could start focusing on more complex aspects of it, like technique and competitions, for example.

It is that transition, the one from expecting first-time parent to actual first-time parent, that people supposedly described to me and my wife. In reality, what they told us was just the most salient aspects of that transition as it went for them. Unsurprisingly, those aspects are the most negative ones, as they cause a lasting impression, and having a baby is normally considered a blessing, so bringing up the positive ones might feel like stating the obvious. Keeping all this in mind, what you will find below is a description of the process as I would have liked to hear it and which I am writing before I, too, forget how it went for me.

In my view, the process of becoming a parent has two main elements. Someone might say there are others, but to me, these two are the most relevant. The first of the elements is what makes the process hard and the second element is what I initially thought would be most challenging, but ended up being relatively simple and in some ways even easy.

The abruptness of the change

The first of those elements of the process is its abruptness. One moment you are an expecting family of two, and in the next moment you are a family of three, the third member being a newborn. There’s no graduality to it, which to me is the main reason why the process is so hard. You need to adjust to your new reality, and you need to do it quickly. The second element is learning how to take care of the baby, which is its own challenge. But the process of becoming a parent is hard not because of those things you need to learn. It is hard because there’s an identity and emotional change that we go through as parents, and that is brought on by the abrupt change.

The identity and emotional change of becoming a parent is akin to the one you go through with the death of a loved one or the diagnosis of a serious medical condition. In the case of the identity and emotional change that a new parent goes through, because it has a positive cause, which is a baby, we do not think it has such an impact as the other two negative changes mentioned. And in that sense, they are very different. A baby opens up an exciting, happy time in a person's life; the death of a loved one or a disease does not.

But the transition is in essence the same. There is a paradigmatic change in the person’s life. You had a very defined sense of who you were and what you wanted to do, and the baby came to radically change that. You are used to being your wife and you, and then suddenly, there are three of you. It has an impact on every aspect of your life. A positive impact, but an impact still.

Think about it. How do you move around where you live? You probably open the door of your house and get in your car or go to the nearest public transport station. With a baby, you are going to have to make sure you have something to transport them, either a car seat or a stroller. For example, my wife and I each have our own car, but we only have one baby car seat, which we installed in my wife’s car. Now, when we travel with the baby, we are limited to her car only.

Examples as the above are probably infinite. The baby has requirements for everything, and you need to cater to them every single time. There is no break from it. And that is the essence of the paradigmatic change, at least how it affected me the most. You are no longer you and yourself alone, as you were up until your baby was born. You now carry the baby and all her needs.  

It is a happy, exciting time, and my wife and I are very excited and happy with our baby, but it is a process that runs parallel to the happiness and the excitement. And that fundamental, paradigmatic change coupled with the lack of sleep and stress is what makes the process of becoming a parent so hard.

What you need to learn

The second element of becoming a parent is all the things you need to learn to actually take care of the baby. Learning these things is not what makes parenting hard. This was surprising to me, as I initially thought learning how to take care of a baby was the core of the hardship of becoming a parent. However, I found out that learning to take care of the baby is actually relatively easy to learn.

The baby needs’ grow with her. In other words, when the baby is a newborn, the requirements are newborn size. She is tiny, which is, of course, nerve-racking because they look so fragile, but her diapers and what she does when going to the bathroom are also tiny. She is relatively easy to move around. She sleeps a lot, even if she wakes up frequently to eat. As the baby grows, so do her needs, becoming more and more complex.

And that’s why it is not complicated. It all starts at a point where it is relatively easy to pick up if you have the willingness and the time. And it gets more and more complicated as time goes by, but so do your abilities. With each passing day, you become more and more adept at all the things your baby needs. Of course, there are very regular and constant adjustment periods where you need to focus, understand what has changed, and adapt accordingly. But when that happens, you will have already developed the underlying skills to be able to iterate and fine-tune what you did up until that point so that it evolves to match what your baby needs.

The process is very fast, as is the baby’s growth. But the fact that it is fast does not take away the fact that it is also incremental and thus allows for incremental adjustments. If you compare the first-time parents of a one-year-old with the ones of a one-month-old, you will see a stark difference. But between the two are just a series of steps that the baby will throw a light on and that the parents will identify and take as time goes by. Between the first-time parents of a one-year-old and the first-time parents of a one-month-old, there is just information that their baby still has not given to the latter.

The learning process of how to take care of a baby does require focus and consistency. Since the process is so fast, if you miss a part of it, it’s going to be hard to catch up with the baby’s needs as they are when you are able to take care of her again. Obviously, it will not be impossible so if that is how it has to go for you because of work or another reason, you are going to be fine. But it is worth keeping in mind, as I could see a scenario where things spin out of control if you are trying to catch up with the baby’s needs after a while and you are also dealing with the abrupt, paradigmatic identity and emotional change.

My hope is that the above serves as a more complete and nuanced description of the transition to becoming a parent. Keeping in mind both elements of it, the identity and emotional change and learning how to take care of a baby, I think you will be able to prepare better and to navigate better that time, which is very hard but very rewarding at the same time.