The ultimate guide to child having/rearing

Morning amigos. I know it’s been a while since I rapped at you but shit’s been more convoluted than whatever the actual plot of the Big Lebowski is over here lately and so I don’t get as much time as I’d like to pontificate to youse all n shit, ya dig? If you like what you read, please consider subscribing. If you don’t wanna, that’s cool too. there’s free content too.

Anyway, let’s move on….

So you’re having a baby…what an idea you got there. Whether you’re a great Pharaoh or  some couple that fucked in the walk in cooler of the Wendy’s by the bus station, one thing is true about having kids: everyone fucking has em. Almost literally, everyone has kids and every single one of us has zero fucking idea what we’re doing, at least at the beginning.

I bring this up for a couple of reasons. First, to point out that I’m aware that I possess no specific authority when it comes to this all but ubiquitous part of the human experience.

Second, I’m aware that a lot of you think you won’t have kids but, spoiler alert, you will and/or a lot of you think you just couldn’t handle having a kid which brings me to my third point:

Think of the dumbest motherfucker you’ve ever known. That dude has kids. The kids are fine. You’d be surprised at how bad you can be at something so important and still end up with a fairly righteous result (for an unrelated example, look no further than my singing and guitar playing). 

But you’re having a child so I’m gonna tell you in no uncertain terms what’s gonna happen and how to deal with it. I could very easily write a whole book on this shit but these are some of the salient highlights of my experience in my last 13+ years of being a parent. Let’s start right after the fun stops, shall we? 

You’re pregnant

Depending on which side of this you’re on, it’s either exhilaratingly terrifying or terrifyingly exhilarating. You wake up one day and a tiny stick tells you that you can’t drink for a year and you listen to it, and the wonders just keep on coming from there. 

Your body will change in ways you can’t even imagine and so will your interest in foods and in uh…kinda everything, at least for a while. I’m not saying it’s bad at all but it’s a change that comes on slowly and really takes hold at uh…I dunno…maybe about the 4-5 month mark. You are now pregnant you, and pregnant you is decidedly not unpregnant you. Both of you are great, but one of you is pregnant, which you’ll quickly notice is a very different you.

If you’re the other person in this experience, you’re kinda one of three types: 1) Wylie Coyote speeding out of town with a trail of dust behind you never to be seen again 2) Ridiculously overcompensating like you’re some kind of simpering pansy working at a plant nursery 24-7 like your pregnant spouse is some kind of rare plant (she’s not, by the way) or 3) white knuckling the experience but doing your best to be cool all the way around (number three maybe chugs a little whiskey or cough medicine or cologne in the bathroom when shit gets too overwhelming but that’s not everyone in category three. Most people should be in category three).

Anyway. 

Everyone involved should be terrified at this point. It’s unprecedented (for you personally, but it’s actually fine, barring some fucked up medical or sociological issues. As I mentioned, every single asshole ever made has made some other asshole) and you’ll feel this terribly annoying urge to let everyone know what you’re going through, as though they haven’t all already gone through it all themselves. 

“Oh, I can’t go to someone’s house if they don’t have enough ice cream” or “I was laying there and the baby rolled over and I felt it on my leg (I’m not the pregnant one) and it woke me up!” you may say.

Fascinating!

Yeah. That shit happens. To. Everyone. But it won’t stop you. You’re in the chamber right now and you’re ready (HA! you’re not at all!) to blast into the next level. And why not? 

Some pregnant people get very very horny and some don’t want anyone even in the same bed as them. Also, pregnant people tend to have a heightened sense of smell that can be extremely annoying, not only for them but also for their partner. 

“Is that garbage? I smell garbage.” 

“Um. I took the garbage out earlier today. I think it’s not garbage. there’s only an envelope and a piece of foil in the can”

“Can you take the can outside? It’s making me want to barf.”

“Uh, it’s literally 3am”

“Yeah?”

Your journey has just begun. 

Once you hear the heartbeat and see the ultrasound and do that thing where you pretend you can see or understand what it is and then tell people you love whatever that blob is, you’re pretty much done except now, you have to go shopping for baby shit, which, well…

Shopping for baby shit

You’ve never heard of these companies and they’re some of the biggest companies in the world. Graco? Recaro? BOB? The fuck are these? Uh, those are your next 8 years of your life homeboy, so get acquainted.

You’re gonna buy expensive ass shit you’ve never heard of and you’re gonna love it (you’re not gonna love it at all). You’re gonna go into a babies r us and notice that every single person that works there is a pregnant woman and then marvel (hide) when one of them gets a hair up her ass and starts getting sassy and the whole place explodes into crazy unpredictable vibes like a bunch of driftwood witches on a desert plain that’s just been struck by lightning. 

You’re gonna feel a crib that is not sturdy at all and then go home and read about how at those baby stores they don’t tighten the screws on the more affordable cribs in order  to seed the illusion that the expensive ones are better. 

“Bastards!” you’ll say, but you’ll also be like “damn, that’s some machiavellian ass shit” and you’ll go on with your shopping. It will take too long. you won’t know what you need. You’ll get an electronic scanner gun and shoot everything in the store for your baby registry which you barely understand the process behind.

You’ll then ask if you can go to the Chilis in the parking lot and get a presidente margarita only to realize that the person you’re asking can’t drink. 

You will go home dejected. You both will. But things are happening. Good thing you got that wipe warmer because it’s time for…

Birth!

This is seriously a weird thing. I don’t mean that casually. I mean it’s about the weirdest thing I’ve ever dealt with and I’ve slept in an active mental institution and found out that I’m not Irish at all even though my name is Brendan Kelly, so I’m not just whistling dixie here, folks. 

Here’s this day: Either it’s planned for some medical or seemingly cosmetic reason (which, uh, no), or you’re at home and some shit just starts going sideways and you’ve gotta go. Sometimes you’ll sit there and power through some pain and discomfort for a while but at a certain point you’re gonna be like “yo, cochese! I gotta get to the delivery room now so wake the fuck up!” 

My mom was driven to the hospital by my uncle and they were stopped on the way by a parade of elephants because the circus was in town and, and I could be wrong about this, I believe they had to get the elephants from the circus train to where the circus was. To this day I believe that’s why I was blessed with this giant grey penis that I can eat peanuts with. Anyway…

Almost every non pregnant partner in a situation like this (the old “your partner is about to give birth” situation) who’s not in category 1 from up in the 'you’re pregnant’ segment) will say and believe something like “I’m just gonna stand up by her head. I don’t need to see that” and that’s a very noble intention. 

People giving birth tend to bleed and shit (not like bleed n shit, like they bleed and they shit) and it’s generally not all tea and crumpets with Kate Middleton and the Queen. They put an industrial garbage bag to shit in below you (we’ve discussed this here before I think, but whatever. I’m continuing).

the thing that makes this noble intention so misguided is uh…how long is your old lady’s torso? Maybe, MAYBE three feet? You’re still right there homie. If you’re not seeing exactly what’s happening (which is completely gnarly no matter how you slice it) you’re in category 1 up there and you’re off windsurfing in the Bahamas or something. If you’re there, you’re seeing birth and here’s the thing: it’s, as I said earlier,  the CRAZIEST thing you’ll ever see. 

I know what you’re thinking: ‘yeah, a little baby comes out of a vagina, and it’s probably a little slimy and bloody. Gotcha. OOOOOOOOOH!’ but it’s like, there’s an unquantifiable energy to it and beyond that there’s this weird thing: there’s a guy in the room who just wasn’t in the room. He just didn’t exist. He didn’t walk in the door. He wasn’t here. He was a theoretical notion and now he’s here. And this weird bloody process is how he got here.

He’s loud. He’s HERE. HOW? that’s how people get to earth? it’s hard to explain because those of you who haven’t had kids clearly think I sound like a loon, but nah. You’ll see. It’s absolutely fucking nuts. I still can’t wrap my head around those moments.

It would literally have blown my mind less if a bunch of aliens had landed on the roof of the hospital and let out their ramp and carried my baby down to me. That makes a LITTLE sense at least. this weird inception that created us all from within, on the other hand, makes literally no sense. 

Everyone (well, a lot of dads say) says that when that baby comes out, suddenly they looked at it and they were just in love, and usually there’s some story like “they wiped him down, put a blanket around him and gave him to me, and he put his tiny hand around my pinky and I just knew I’d love this little person forever.”

Um. Not my experience. Not at all. When my son came out I was fucking terrified. I looked down at him and was like “holy shit. this is a whole guy. He’s a guy every bit as much as I’m a guy but I have to put every single piece of basic data into him and I have to keep him alive and he’s gonna live with me for at least 18 years and I don’t know what he’s into. I don’t know what kind of music he likes or if he’s into movies or tacos or anything. I have no fucking idea about this guy.”

“Don’t you just love him?”

“Heh. ha. Hmmmm. Ye…yeah. Ha! Yup. Sure do! Um. Yeah. Bada ba ba baaaaa. I’m lovin him. Totally. Ah, that familiar feeling of loving a strange baby that I’ve never met. Yes. Yes I do.” 

Yeah, so that’s birth. then if you did the birthing, you’re completely fucked up in your nether zone (obviously), and slightly less obviously you kinda don’t have um…There’s no nice way to say this one but you’ll kinda look like a garbage bag that just had a ton of stuff in it and doesn’t any more but it still recalls said stuff being in there. this tends to surprise the shit out of new parents. Welp. Now ya know. Good luck with that. 

Then they take your new baby away to the night nursery incubator etc and you have a moment of being like “but wait…” and then you go “holy fucking shit I’m tired. That was the craziest day of my life” and you never once go back to remembering how fucking awesome it was that they took your infant away from you and had it in good hands and you kinda had second thoughts about it. You only wish you could go back and live in the birthing area with those nurses and those heat lamps and just get the sleep that you were, up until this very moment, used to getting.

HA! 

Then they let (make) you go home, and you gotta show the hospital that you can put a car safety seat into your car if you’re gonna drive with the baby.

If you’re industrious, you can go to any fire station beforehand and they’ll show you how to do this shit, but you can also (in my experience) just kinda try and get all sweaty and exasperated and then throw up your hands and be like “um, I guess keep the baby?” and they’ll help you right there on the spot. Pro tip. 

Then you get home and life just absolutely starts to suck…

The first 3 months

So I’m no big city primatologist but what I’ve heard is that humans, after developing much larger brains than our fellow apes, had heads too big for the old lady to handle and thusly started killing their moms during the whole "push!” part of getting born and thereby also dying themselves during the birthing process, except for those of us born prematurely.

Hear me out. 

So the theory here is that the gestation period for humans is supposed to be 12 months, but it’s become 9 due to the evolutionary imperative that’s helped shape us since we started coming down from the trees after we started getting smart and displaying the propensity for critical thought and the idea of wanting shelter and wearing and taking off clothes, due to the fact that again, the big brains we needed to be humans really don’t fit through the small vaginas we all so crave.

Why did it become a quicker gestation period instead of the development of larger vaginas? The world may never know, but I feel like I kinda answered it in the sentence before this one.

ANYWAY, the thing here is that for the first three months after that kid is born, you’re fucked, buddy. You’re living with a fetus. That lil’ guy’s still literally supposed to be gestating in a womb. The best thing you can try is to get a cloth and wrap the baby up tight like a burrito (like, so tight you would call the cops on yourself) and put that little fucker in a swing or a carseat and hope for the best. 

The first three months, you’re catching sleep in 5 minute intervals and that’s it. You’re taking naps at 9PM, you’re having a beer at 6AM, because life has lost all meaning besides just the desire for sleep and the desire to turn off the continuously going off siren that exists inside the baby. It’s like Guantanamo (I’m guessing) but worse (I’m guessing) because you don’t even have anyone you can really hate. It’s just pure, uncut hell. 

The fetus barfs, the fetus eats. the fetus shits and the fetus kinda shakes its hands around and makes dumb crosseyed faces while you’ve got it in your carseat at the booth at the diner. Aaaaaand the fetus shits again. 

You’ll need things for whenever you leave the house. More things than you ever expected. You’ll need a grip of diapers, a few things of wipes, (god forbid you run out of either of these far from home), you’ll need some kind of teething ring, the formula or breast milk and some bottles, a plastic bag to put these gross items in, a change of clothes (realistically for both of you, but mostly just for the baby), another change of clothes, a changing pad, baby powder, some kind of vaseline adjacent jelly type shit, probably a little bunny or something that makes you feel like this thing has any idea what’s going on (at this point it can’t even see), the swaddling cloth and probably some wee tiny shoes, and I’m not joking. This is how much shit you need EVERY SINGLE TIME you leave the house. 

The diaper bag, she is the biggest bitch of zem all, but also, she is lifesaver if properly packed. And you’ll get good at it. 

After 3 months, you start to get some return on your investment and you’ll maybe be dumb enough to think something along the lines of “oh shit, she’s smiling at me. I think she recognizes me!” but you’ll just be so deliriously happy that she stopped screeching all night long, and you’ll be so shell shocked by what your life has become that you’re looking for anything at all to make you feel like this rollercoaster straight into hell has been anything other than the fast track to insanity and someday being on the news being like “We’re sorry our son killed that troupe of girl scouts, we really tried our best” and this is the point in the “from fetus to baby” process when you start to get some bullshit coos and blinks and so forth that make you stupidly go ‘you know what? This is all worth it.” 

But that baby is still just 3 months old and your woods, they are still dark and they are still full of terrors and things that scream in the night. Speaking of… 

Sleep Training

Once you get completely tired of this bullshit life of never sleeping and your baby is old enough (3 months) it’s time for sleep training. Other people will tell you that 3 months is too early, but those people are fucking fools. You can do it at 3 months and once it’s done, you get to sleep through the night again, which, if you don’t have kids sounds like “big fuckin whoop” but if you DO, holy shit! It’s a miracle the likes of which you’d dared not dream of. 

Here’s the thing though: sleep training is fucking HELL. 

So, the way it goes is this: you put the baby in the crib and then at a certain point it starts crying because it’s used to constant attention. You sit there. In your bed. In a different room (if you got that kinda real estate). Then the baby starts to scream. Then she starts screaming much louder. then much much louder. You and your spouse sit there and shiver and cry because you are genetically programmed to absolutely NEED to take care of that child and you’re shaken terribly by not being able to run in there and fix it. 

The baby keeps screaming. You start to think it’s actually dying or in some sort of situation where something fell on it or something. You can’t believe that little thing can keep making this much noise at this high of a volume for this long. They cry more. You cry more. You get to the point where you go “fuck it, I’m going in there.”

But, to reuse the phrase: here’s the thing, you just let that kid scream for an hour or so and if you go in there, you’re reinforcing that the screaming makes you come running. even if you just as much as open the door, it undermines the whole sleep training process completely. I know it sounds counterintuitive and cruel, but it’s much crueler to cave and have them cry and scream only to never learn to mature when they have done most of the hard work of crying it out already. Believe me, your kid will still know how to employ attention seeking behavior after this. Just look at me as a perfect example. It’s all I do. And I’m 45.

But anyway… 

You’ll be brave and strong. You’ll send your wife to a hotel for the next two days because the second day is worse. The third day is TERRIBLE. and then you’ll wake up at 7 on the fourth day and be positive the child is dead. 

The child is not dead. You just taught the child to sleep through the night. It is seriously a miracle. But it comes after a nervous fever that lasts 3 nights and takes years off your life. The fourth night is also scary but at least it’s not the screaming banshee wail that you’ll never stop hearing for the rest of your life.

Vicarious living

So I remember when my wife was pregnant and came out to see me on tour, my friend Joey was on our bus and he was like “oh shit your life’s about to change” (he was right), and he said, next thing you know you’re gonna be in some shitty playground with some shitty dad and you’re gonna be like ‘I’m 40, you’re 40 and I don’t really want any new friends but our kids like each other so I guess hi. My name’s Joe’ and it’s all fucked up and lame and weird but that’s your life now. But as you get older then you get to live vicariously through the kids and that’s great”

…And I never understood that shit. I always thought “um, I’d like to do my own living and someone else doing something doesn’t really do much for me” but then I had kids and I figured out what it means for real, because people don’t usually describe this the right way (I am well aware that I’ve touched on this topic before but it’s worth remembering for all of us). 

You know when you hear a song that’s so radical and you are just like “oh shit, Martin is gonna love this song” and then you run over to Martin’s house and you play him the song and you can hear it through his ears as he’s hearing it for the first time and you can tell that he’s totally feeling it and even though you literally didn’t do jack shit you almost feel like you wrote the song yourself because you’re so stoked to have shown someone you like something you knew they’d like?

That’s what living vicariously is, but with kids it’s like “you know what you’re gonna love, dude, escalators” or “you’re gonna freak out when you first get on a train” or ice cream, or grandpa or whatever…and then they DO! They love shit. They haven’t seen nearly enough stuff to be bored of all of it and as a result they’re still enthusiastic about everything. 

Will their souls die someday? Um, mine did. Didn’t yours? But til then you get to sit there and see all the stuff you can find through the eyes of a little person that hasn’t yet given up on everything. 

Here’s the thing that you’ll maybe realize pretty soon if you’ve got any kind of a sense of what’s what: when they come out, they’re as good as they’re ever gonna be. You can’t make em better but you CAN fuck them up. To use an extreme example, you can tie em to a radiator in the dark basement and throw freezing water on them every few hours and turn them into complete psychopaths (not recommended), but conversely, all the Sanskrit speaking clerics cooing over them all day and all the highest class friends won’t make em better than the way you made them. You did the best you could. Now, just don’t fuck em up. But you will. Just try to keep it to a minimum.

Speaking of situations that could potentially fuck your toddler up…

Potty Training

This sounds like it would suck, but it’s better than you think. You go out there and you get a thing of M&Ms (or Reese’s Pieces if you’re brave and your kid is stalwart and not afraid to die by peanut butter) and you get a little tiny potty and you put them on it in front of the TV and you have them watch their favorite shows while they sit on it. they do not get to move. they are like just about three? Maybe younger but not by much (it’s been a minute), and you give them a little candy every time they do anything into the potty. It’s a process but it’s not the kind of process that you can’t handle. 

Is there shit and pee? Of course there’s shit and pee. Is it always a slam dunk? ABSOLUTELY not. There’s nothing but hope and nurturing and love and “I’ll deal with your pee and poo” going on (and cleaning out that little potty is fuuuuucking gross) and you’ll find that the results don’t come totally quickly, in fact they’re remarkably wild in how the old habits (just shitting in your pants) come back to surprise you, but when it starts to work out, it’s really miraculous.

Suddenly, you can just leave the house. I know this sounds like nonsense to anyone who doesn’t have kids, but you no longer have to pack that diaper bag. You no longer have to be concerned with diapers and wipes and you can literally stand up and just leave with your children. 

You will have not done this in years. You will be completely blown away by the freedom that it seems like this is affording you. You are suddenly a bit of a regular human again. 

It will never be the same, but you’ve done the hardest parts now (until they’re teens, obviously) and you can start surfing a little more casually. 

So, though it sounds weird, potty training fucking rules. 

Dressing them

They’re your little doll that you made and of course you want to make them into your tiny avatar. Dress em up like Bagger Vance if you want, or put them in the Ramones onesie, none of it matters. It’s all just broadcasting that you’re kind of a dork. 

Kids don’t care what they’re wearing and more to the point, no one in the world cares what your kid is wearing. So go to Ross or whatever and just do that. Don’t try too hard. It makes you look like a try hard.

Just chill. I know you’re excited but as I said, everyone has had kids. Try to maintain some dignity. If not for you, then for the kid. You don’t even know what they’re into yet for fuckssakes. That kid can’t even name 5 Clash songs, goddamnit. 

Food

Kids don’t like food. Once they get out of formula and shit, they have to eat food and most of it is not to their liking. 

Here’s what you have: You got string cheese, you got Cheerios or Golden Grahams or something in a bag (No milk). You get avocado if you’re lucky. You get apples. You get pineapple maybe.

You’ll get lemons. Your weird gross ass kid will just chug lemons at first bc his tastebuds are so wimpy that lemons are the only thing that gets him high, and you’ll maybe have PB&J but they wont actually eat this. they just request it and then leave it to the side while they house goldfish crackers. 

Here’s the thing that’s really crucial to know: this is normal. Every parent thinks their bullshit ass kid is a fucked up weird appetite destined-to-be-pervert or something, but no kids like anything. they don’t like eating at all. 

Consider that they got their food out of tits before. If you got your food out of tits would you voluntarily suddenly go to eating a cheese sandwich? No. You would not.

And your child won’t either. 

As it continues (the brutal slog of time in a grandiose sense) you will come to see that your child has actual tastes. This one likes well done scrambled eggs with ketchup (total barf) and this one likes a soft scramble with cream cheese and scallions (that’s my girl!) and you’ll realize that all that time spent worrying over food was just a complete waste of time. 

Remember what you ate as a kid? As a teen? Now!?!?! It doesn’t matter. People are the people they are and, to borrow a phrase, you can’t fool them with vegetables when they want blood. Do NOT sweat what other people eat. This can be applied to literally any and everyone.

school

You’re gonna be worried about your kids going to school no matter how fucking stupid you were in school. No parent wants to see a D on the report card or find out that their toddler has bitten everyone in the daycare (this is from personal experience btw), but none of it matters. 

Some of the best people on earth were terrible in school. One of my best friends was considered ‘learning disabled’ and regularly committed crimes in the school (uprooting sapling trees, flushing a bunny down the toilet) and he’s literally one of the smartest most successful people I know. 

In stark contrast, I’ve known plenty of dumbfuck shitheads who climb to be above average in scholastic endeavors and end up in dead end jobs, even if they’re terribly esteemed for their academic career. 

Your kid is a person and that is what’s gonna guide her. She’s her. That’s what she can be graded on. After 9th grade no one cares if you know geometry unless you’re an architect (in which case, pretty important) but your kid will be fine. Think about how many TOTAL fuckups (not casual “my brother married a crazy bitch” fuckups but real fuckups) there are out there. 

There aren’t many. Your kid is statistically not gonna be one. Tell em to learn. But you can’t make em learn. You can only make them resent learning so be smart about it. Ya fucking dummy. 

Giving them interests

You are a huge eagles fan and you’re gonna put an eagles jersey on your son the day he’s born and you’re gonna watch every game together and guess what! Your son is gay and loves Hamilton. 

You can’t do this and just make what you want the thing your kid wants. People ask me (as I’m a musician) if my kids have interests in music and the answer is “absolutely not.” You don’t get to just jump your kid into sports or music or science or whatever. To repeat a tired point, they’re already them. You only can fuck them up. 

So put a tutu on your son or deny him jazz dance class lessons all you want but it’s probably cooler just to kinda listen and be like “Oh, that’s what you’re into? I don’t know shit about this since I’m a completely different person than you and I never had that interest but you know what? Let’s see what this shit’s all about.”

You’re so much better served listening than telling in this case. Of course you have to tell kids what to do and that’s a whole different article, but when it comes to them being themselves, that’s on them, and it’s on you to listen and nurture and stand back. 

To do anything else is just dogshit bad parenting. This one is a hill I’ll die on. 

them dressing themselves

Yeah, she looks like a dork but all you’re gonna do is give her a complex. Let her be. She’ll settle down. no investment banker dresses like that, at least not yet. It truly doesn’t matter. the way you dress has about as much to do as the way your butthole looks.

Yo. She’ll be fine. 

Thank you for reading folks. Enjoy your children and please subscribe if you’ve got the scratch. I’m starving and my children need wine. xoxo ilup