Post 8: Helplessness

One of the most common phrases used by various visitors over the past week was, “Oh... look at him! He looks so cute and helpless”

There are times I wonder if that is a more apt description of how we, the parents feel. Maybe not the cute part, but definitely helpless. Over the first 26 some odd days of S’s life, it’s fair to say we were relatively spoiled as parents. He ate well, slept well, pooped well, and was overall a predictable baby. I almost felt guilty as my neighbors would run into me in the elevator on my way to the gym and say things like, “How come you’re working out- you should be sleep deprived and overall disheveled!”. The surreptitiously legalistic side of me would quietly think thoughts like, “I suffered deeply waiting for my baby’s arrival, so God is therefore rewarding me with a calm and happy baby”. The Pharisee within me that still sees life in terms of cosmic bargains is sadly alive and well.

Then day 27 came around. It started like any other day- the normal schedule and routines. Then, around 3 PM, the floodgates opened. There were a series of farts- but really no other indication of the tsunami of crying that was about to ensue. Like any neophyte father, I have a checklist of things that I go through when the baby is crying- is he hungry, is his diaper wet, does he need to be burped? Checked all of the above and none were the root cause. I did the five S’s from the popular DVD “Happiest Baby on the Block”- the SSHHH, Swaddle, Sideways, Swing, Shake- I subsequently kicked it up a notch and tried a few more of the things I’ve added to my arsenal- placing him in a stroller and moving him around the loft, holding him and swinging him back and forth (a great core exercise, btw), drawing isosceles triangles on his tummy, etc. All of my best efforts yielded absolutely nothing but a 10 pound ball full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

The wife was asleep in the bedroom- the least I could do to help a breast-feeding woman is give her some temporary respite on a weekend afternoon. It was just me against S, and the scoreboard was 82-0, in favor of the progeny. I shall reveal my rookie colors in sharing the overwhelming panic that descended upon me as nothing I tried altered the state of affairs. I pride myself in my level-headedness, but an hour of nearly constant screaming left me frazzled. Ultimately, i placed him down, put my hand on his tiny paws, and tried to transport myself to a different place. Miraculously, I succeeded. I somehow calmed myself by simply acknowledging that there was something God was trying to tell me in this small little episode. If nothing else, this was another reminder about how little control I have over S, and perhaps even life in general. Having been formally trained in applied mathematics, my default disposition is to create a model in my head for how every system behaves. If it can be modeled, it can be understood. If it can be understood, it can be controlled. And control, of course, is the key to life going well. I had lulled myself into this sense that I had a comprehensive understanding of this little system. If he eats well and poops well, then everything else ought to be well. Instead, I was promptly reduced to a state of complete helplessness. There appeared to be little correlation between my actions and whether or not S looked like this:

or this:

All I could do in the end was just hold him close against my shoulder and tell him everything will be alright. While my right ear may be deaf after another 30 minutes of S screaming into it, I have a slightly richer understanding of this unconditional love I kept hearing about prior to S’s arrival. Naturally, I can’t help but to draw the analogy of me as the screaming, unpredictable child and God the Father as the parent. They say God is omniscient, and of course He is, but I have a sense that I’ve done my fair share of unpredictable things that leave Him bewildered and disappointed. But despite this, I can sense how God too has held me on His shoulder, and He’d whisper that everything is going to be alright.

For sure, parenting is going to try my patience and reveal the myriad of my shortcomings. But on this day, I was reminded that we are, indeed, made in the image of God.