For me, the ensuing Identity Crisis that I faced after divorce was the toughest. I identified strongly with being married and with having a family in the traditional sense. I absolutely abhorred the thought of divorce because of how it affected me as a child when my own parents split up. Well, let me tell you, divorce nowadays doesn’t have to be as messed up as it was in the ‘80s.

After my separation there was a real risk I might miss a majority of my children’s upbringing in the years to follow. You see, when my Ex thought to give me my walking papers she hadn’t played out a scenario in which I would assume 50% custody. In her mind she probably believed I would just kind of “go away” and be replaced by monthly support payments. I can’t fault her for thinking this really.

My Ex had been with our kids for close to 9 years in her role as stay-at-home mom and truth be told, as much as this pains me to say it, I wasn’t the most engaged Dad during that time. I mean sure, I didn’t neglect my kids by any means. I took them to their activities, went to the park, bathed them, changed diapers, read to them, put them to bed, etc… It’s just that I “wasn’t that into them” and my Ex knew it.

I thought of parenting as more of a “chore” than anything rendering real enjoyment. I often looked in wonderment and envy at parents who seemed to revel in their child’s upbringing and I felt inadequate. My feelings when going out with the kids were more anxiety based, like “what will I do if my daughter needs three diapers instead of the two I packed?” or “How many times do I need to apply sunblock? What if I miss an area?!!”. When I’m anxious about something, I tend to avoid it. A lot of times that’s what I did with my kids. I’m getting better at that though, Graduated Exposure Therapy to the rescue!

On the Job Training

My Ex had 9 years of full-time on-the-job experience raising children, I had to catch up quick or I would certainly drown.

For a few months after we separated we continued to live together and I held out hope we would reconcile. Then we switched to “bird nesting” where half of the time I’d live in the house with the kids and the other half my Ex would. This of course worked great for the kids, but at the same time it was really tough for me. For those who don’t know, when bird nesting you essentially live “out of a bag” and because of the constant coming and going it begins to wear on you. After several months of bird nesting I finally broke down and found an apartment and it was from there that I resumed my parenting duties.

It was hard. My new place was nice and cozy, but it was tiny, one of those early 1900s buildings complete with radiator heat and a kitchen so small that you could barely turn around in it. Not to mention, no dishwasher! I spent many a night doing dishes until 1 o’clock in the morning.

I made a pledge to myself that I would not cop out and serve the kids meals from Dominos, McDonalds or Swanson. My Ex was very health-conscience and that rubbed off on me in a big way. So my meals for the kids would be homemade. I learned to pre-prepare as many meals as possible, it took so much of the stress away to have a meal ready to go at a moment’s notice (and I can’t stress that enough). I learned to bake muffins and banana loafs to have on hand. I built up a repertoire of meals I could whip up and serve in under an hour. Japanese Curry, Lentil Soup, Butternut Squash Soup, Crockpot Beef Stew, Breaded Chicken, Bolognese Sauce and Pasta, etc… These were go-to recipes that the kids loved and I made sure there were left overs for school lunch the next day. A crockpot is the saviour of a single parent, if you don’t have one then get one people!

I bought a really nice Piano keyboard and stuffed it into my bedroom so they could practice, I scuttled them along to all their activities often having to feed them in the car on my way home from work. I don’t want to say what others might say, and that is “Craig became a mom”. I’d rather we move past that gender stereotype and we’ll instead say “Craig became a whole parent” and I felt empowered and emboldened by it.

Tough Times

Not everything was rosy though, I suffered a lot from anxiety, mild paranoia, identity crisis and financial debt. My mother had said it perfectly at the time: “Craig, you just aren’t the same person anymore. I want to see you happy again”. It was true, I often sported a thousand mile stare. At night after I put the kids down to bed, I’d let out a gigantic sigh at my tiny kitchen full of dishes as I downed two to three stiff drinks and got to it. Rinse repeat. Throw in the need to work my day job, and then having to balance the other half of the time away from the kids with a new love. It was hard. I felt there was no me-time.

I mentioned identity crisis again in that last paragraph. Once I had gotten over the “being divorced” identity crisis I ran into another one. Apartment dweller. To me, living in an apartment while my ex-wife remained in the family house epitomized the “divorced guy” stigma. I’d dodge any attempt at my accommodations coming up in conversation. Whenever my son would mention in front teammates and parents alike about “my dad’s apartment” I’d get flushed with embarrassment and shame, all the while assuming the other parents were judging me, saying to themselves “he must have f*cked up his marriage, he’s the one not in the house”. I was becoming paranoid and I was assuming people were judging me.

Was this all worth it? Living in a tiny apartment, rushing from activity to activity, suppers, lunches, scrubbing dishes, endless laundry. I was a proud man before my separation, now I was humbled.

Developing the Rest of Myself

In November of 2013, just over a year after my separation I was driving back from a short trip to visit friends in Minneapolis. One of my favorite things to do is listen to NPR to help make the seven hour trip pass by.

On that day fate intervened and NPR aired Gloria Steinem’s National Press Club speech after she had received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

In her speech she said…

“Women leave the home and leave childrearing and develop the rest of themselves, but not enough men enter child rearing in the home and develop the rest of themselves.”

Oh… my… God… Yes, yes! How could this wonderful woman so eloquently justify my endeavor in such a beautiful and fundamental way. The reason Ms. Steinem’s words resonated so profoundly with me comes down to the timing of her words and how it instantaneously shifted my mindset.

As you know, I was living in a small apartment, financially strapped and seriously stressed about how hard I found child rearing alone. I started to have thoughts about downgrading the role I’d play in my kids upbringing.

Was I having thoughts about abandoning my kids and moving to San Francisco with my girlfriend? The thought had crossed my mind, as hard as it is for me to admit that, the kernel of that thought was there. With that action I could wipe the board and start with a clean slate.

Luckily, I had very strong ideals about ensuring I would remain an equal part of my kids lives. People would tell me “Craig, you are making this too hard on yourself. Your Ex wants more time with the kids, why don’t you let her?” It’s true, my life would be a lot easier but my response instead was always:

“I would be simply exchanging short-term relief for a lifetime of regret”.

But still, my mind would plot out a life working for a tech company in The Valley, going for hikes in the beautiful climate of northern California with my girl friend. But to abandon my kids for that? I knew that wasn’t me. I knew doing that would spawn an even worse Identity Crisis than I was already facing, it would be that of the deplorable “Absentee Father”.

Until I heard Ms. Steinem’s words I continued with the mindset that I had to sacrifice my happiness in exchange for ensuring my children’s. It was this path of reasoning that changed for me. After hearing Ms. Steinem’s speech I could parent not only for my kids sake, not only to protect my ideals, I was doing it to grow myself into a whole person.

No longer the Martyr

What Ms. Steinem’s speech did for me was to pivot my mindset from the ‘Martyr Dad’ — who sacrifices an ideal life for his children — to a view of fatherhood that was focused toward net positive gains for me as a person. I came to the realization that I’d be depriving myself if I took a backseat in my children’s lives. By maintaining my equal responsibility with parenting I was contributing to my own humanity, not missing the proverbial boat of my life.

Maternal Stereotype

Part of my problem I’ve come to realize was a belief in this really bad myth that Ijeoma Oluo brings up in her very funny and pointed piece “Parenting Advice: Don’t Kill Them”. In it Oluo concludes that women are unfairly stamped as “the default parent”, that there exists a pervasive myth stating that women are somehow born more equipped to parent. Worst of all they are expected to enjoy every waking minute of parenting lest they be labeled a “Bad Mother”. Let’s call this the “Maternal Stereotype”.

The fact of the matter is that parenting is hard, and it’s hard for both men and for women who haven’t been exposed to parenting before having their own children. I was so guilty, hook-line-and-sinker, of buying into this Maternal Stereotype. Partly to blame; my archetype of motherhood was in fact my own Mother. I don’t remember her finding parenting *that hard*, and I remember shaming my wife when she at times couldn't cope. It was only later on, after I took on equal responsibility in parenting that I realized why my Mother might have found it easier than my wife or other women: Women are not born to parent, they are simply born with the basic instinct to “not kill them”. Everything else about parenting they had to learn just like anyone else.

In a flash it all made sense why I had such a tough time parenting while people like my Mother didn’t. It was because my Mother was essentially groomed to be a mother her entire life. My Mother was the eldest of nine, yes nine children. She co-mothered her siblings with my Amma for what equated to essentially her entire formative years! If you do something for that long, you get good at it or at least you get used to it. It becomes second nature. My Mom was good at parenting, and with herself having only two kids (*only* relative to having nine!) spaced six years apart, she probably found parenting her own children to be a walk in the park!

Born Again Dad

I absolutely hated the term “Born Again Dad” when I first heard it; but it fits. It really fits. I’ve begun to own the term in a positive way. Now for me it summons the notion that people can change. People can learn, adapt, they can understand and they can empathize with that which they previously couldn’t relate.

So my parting words for Moms out there is “parenting is hard so don’t worry if you find it hard. It’s time we instead made the exception the rule; to share the responsibility in parenting”.

To Fathers, I hope you heed the words as I did, of Ms Steinem and come to realize you are depriving yourself if you buy into the Maternal Stereotype. I don’t want the trigger to have to be a divorce before a father involves himself fully in raising his children.

It’s time we move past gender. It’s time to realize that moms and dads are equal; that we are simply all ‘Parents’.