TikTok recently connected me with a very strange and cruel genre.
There are a handful of popular creators, spun off from the GRWM (Get Ready With Me) craze, that are just single dudes in their 20s documenting what they do after work and on the weekends. In these short, silent films, they set up carefully angled cameras around their house as they capture themselves doing extremely normal things like getting ready for the gym, making a simple dinner, cracking open a drink, or sitting down to watch a game.
All by themselves. All on their own time.
Listen, I get that it’s weird. Weird that I am on TikTok to begin with and even weirder that I am masochistically watching these videos while pondering my existence during my third wakeup of the night. But these videos made me realize that what I miss the most about my “past life” are the simple luxuries I took for granted. The moments spent alone. The Sunday naps. The seven hours of commercial free football. These brainless TikToks are nostalgic gateways back to simpler times, where life wasn’t spent obsessing over sleep training and daycare closures.
On Super Bowl Sunday, I thought a lot about this specific video, where our hero spends a hungover Sunday eating a giant Jersey Mike’s sub and watching NFL games with his dog. I’m going to be extremely honest and vulnerable: that sounds fucking awesome. Waking up late, ordering food I shouldn’t, sinking into the couch. I want to do that right now. I love my kids to death, but sometimes, I really crave a day just like that.
My Super Bowl experience was quite different, with 1.5 sick children squawking and screaming and complaining about avocado grazing the chicken on their plate. My wife, who sacrificed a lot on Sunday to run as much interference as possible, allowed both the toddler and I to have the rare privilege of screens at the dinner table. Other than the toddler asking me the names of every single person or animal in every single commercial, it was an acceptable way to watch the game.
However, I started to see my life flash before my eyes when the pace picked up in the fourth quarter. Kansas City was driving to tie or win the game a little before 7 p.m., also famously known as bedtime. Patrick Mahomes and I were both racing against the clock, and I had a lot more faith in his ability to extend the game than mine.
I remember thinking that I was going to write about this exact moment because it just perfectly encapsulated what it means to become a parent: removing yourself from the things that matter most to you in order to help your kids with the things that mean the least to them.
That is a very dramatic takeaway from a night spent watching football on my laptop, but the lesson can definitely be extrapolated to all forms of pre-kids hobbies and ambitions. Whether it’s watching sports or sleeping in or reading or traveling or just doing anything because you wanted to do it, your life, at least for a while, will be intensely different. And some days, that is a very tough pill to swallow.
“It comes back”
The first year of both of my kids’ lives (still three months to go for the baby, holy hell) felt incredibly long. That’s not a unique feeling. Having a newborn is a serious shock to the system, and it’s only multiplied by the presence of another young kid.
I’m not proud to admit this, but I’ve had my fair share of freakouts over not being able to create the ideal balance of family, work, hobbies, and recharging time. Strangely, I feel more motivated than I ever have before. There are so many things I want to do and achieve. It’s like my brain waited until the most inopportune moment to have this sudden surge of inspiration and creativity, right when my ability to act on it was being suffocated by circumstance.
When things are going well, it’s easy to zoom out and say, “Hey, this is hard, but it’s temporary, and I know that I’ll get back to doing the things I love in due time.” When they aren’t, it can feel like your life is over.
The good news is that your life isn’t over - it’s just different. In one of my first posts, I talked about the importance of setting expectations before becoming a parent:
You won’t lose your identity - I hate when people say that. But your identity is going to fundamentally change. You should set your own expectations for what that means and how you will cope with a dramatically different life.
Once you have kids, you are still you. It’s not like all of the things you loved just evaporate into the ether, leaving you with the singular focus of child rearing. Your identity changes because children have possibly more impact on your values, priorities, and time than anything else in the world. You cannot live the same way as you did before – unless you abandon them, which I strongly considered when the game went into OT – but you don’t have to abandon yourself, either.
The other day, I sent the hangover/Jersey Mike’s video to a group chat that includes a couple of dad friends, asking them how often they miss this. One of them responded, “It comes back, but those were great Sundays.”
I don’t know why, and I hate giving him credit for this, but I’ve thought a lot about that response. As complex and stifling and indescribably difficult as the new parent years can feel, the answer really is that simple. The things you yearn for so often when you’re up neck deep in shit eventually come back. Maybe not in the way you once knew. Maybe not with as much time to devote to them. But there is light at the end of the tunnel, even when it seems never-ending.
Like almost all of the parenthood’s challenges, I’ve found two tools to be most helpful: expectations and perspective. Expectations in the form of giving myself the grace I need to have a cathartic freakout without beating myself up too much. And perspective in knowing that while those great Sundays will come back, the early days with my kids will not.
The bad times are fleeting, but so are the good. And finding the joy in both, as tough as it may be, is what makes this journey so special.
Kid highlight of the week
With the toddler’s third birthday quickly approaching, we had been contemplating when to move her into her “big girl bed.” We mentioned it to her a few times in passing, and she seemed a little nervous about such a big move. But after staring at the box in our garage for several months, we finally decided to assemble it over the weekend.
There was a lot of discussion about how to migrate her to the new sleeping situation. Do we rip the bandaid off and pull the crib out of her room immediately? Do we add a lock to her door to keep her safe at night? Do we not do that because someone on the internet said it was inhumane? We ultimately landed on a very cautious and gradual transition, where we’d leave the bed (a floor bed, important in a moment) next to her crib for a few days to allow her to become more comfortable with the idea.
I finished putting the bed together at 5 p.m. on Saturday. At 6:45 p.m. that evening, once we had gotten ready for sleep, she entered her room for the first time to see the new addition. Excited, she ran over to it and jumped on the mattress. Unfamiliar with how mattresses work, she bounced off the side and landed face-first on her humidifier before scream crying for the next 15 minutes.
Suffice it to say, she is currently sleeping peacefully, in her crib.
I hope you find your remaining 0.5 child soon