On the Occasion of Dr. Spock's Birthday

"You know more than you think you do." - Dr. Benjamin Spock
from The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care


I’m just not sure that is true. I certainly hope it is, particularly in regards to the subject of Dr. Spock’s dissertation, babies. You see my wife and I will soon be having one of these babies. (God willin’ and the crick don’t rise, knock on wood, salt over the shoulder and all the other bits of superstitious hooey that I will abide only when it comes to impending birth.) And because of the forthcoming infant, I am assessing, with great scrutiny, everything I know.

It ain’t much.

I know the batting averages of the top three American League hitters from 1987 (Boggs .363, Molitor .353, Trammell .343). I know the lyrics to “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands,” Bob Dylan’s verbose, 11 minute ode to his new wife, Sara Dylan, and eulogy to his relationship with smokin' hot lesbian, Joan Baez. I know how to make Hollandaise sauce and I know that John Keats died when he was twenty-seven. Beyond that, I’m a little hazy.

So, you can see why I’m nervous. If this is the breadth and scope of knowledge that I am able to pass on to my progeny...well, let’s just say that natural selection won’t have far to go before it starts nipping at the heels of my bloodline.
And the preposterous thing is that I used to fancy myself a know-it-all.
In high school and college, I’m sure I put quite a few people off with inane bits of trivia and pseudo-academic posturing. And while I do so much more rarely than in my faraway youth, I still step into that particular pile of intellectual exhibitionism every now and then. I always hoped to get better about being a pretentious smarty-pants, but this is ridiculous.

I woke up this morning, the baby’s due date 18 days away, and found that I know, basically, nothing. We took a class about giving birth, 15 hours in total. All those handy bits of coping techniques and wise old saws, gone. I read several books about pregnancy and another about all of the various problems and pitfalls of the baby’s first year. Gone. Sophomore Chemistry? The Sports Illustrated swimsuit cover models from 1987-1996? Gone. So what am I to do with this Tabula Rasa, blank slate, Locke-ian head of mine?

Not a thing.

You see I believe this is a necessary step into an open man-hole that comes before everyone’s first child. If at some point before the child arrives you don’t panic and forget everything you have ever thought, seen, or known in your life, then you’re not really paying attention.

There is a new life coming. One that will be filled with many of the microscopic strands of biology that you, yourself, are made of. One that really will know virtually nothing, except the necessary behavior to sustain its own life. Eat, sleep, poop, and eat. Anybody but a Stepford Wife would be prompted to some minor level of personal crisis when facing the arrival of a first child. And the most logical component of such a crisis is this thought, “I won’t be able to teach them enough for them to survive, much less thrive, in this world that can swallow a person whole.”
It’s the anxiety that drives us to fight. Fight for our lives, for our loved ones, for the hope and possibility that our DNA will be passed on in perpetuity.

So while I may be dumber than a box of rocks right now, I’m not altogether worried or disturbed by it. I know that once the child arrives, some of my brain will come back. The most primal bits of human business that must be urgently passed on to the child. How to watch things, hear, grasp, laugh, be comforted. Soon enough I will be helping him or her walk and talk. By that point, I might begin recalling the state capitols and mulitplication tables that I knew so well at age 8. Hopefully, in due time, my newborn anxiety will subside and the whole of my knowledge will return and I can take my youngster under my wing and show them the truly wonderous quality of this world in which we live. Let them know the names of the few trees I was/will be able to identify, how to swing a hammer, how to eat a grapefruit. And finally the most important kernel of sage advice and instruction that can be given to a young person making their way in the world:
“Beer before liquor; never sicker. Liquor before beer; never fear.”

Maybe Dr. Spock was right. Maybe I do know more than I think I do.

Eric, how are you going to pay for this baby?

Nope. I don’t.