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Jan. 5, 2009 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
21:50
1248 Fatherhood Part Three

A couple of interesting challenges for the new father...

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Good. Uh, evening.
How are you doing it, Steph? Just dropped a little Jake off at the airport.
He kindly dropped by on his way back from vacation, which was just absolutely wonderful to see you.
And I hope that you're doing very well.
I want to do a little bit more on parenting, because now, you see, it's all too wonderful for words.
I can be an absolutely insufferable know-it-all.
I guess you already knew that.
But I can be an absolutely insufferable know-it-all on the subject of parenting.
Why, you see? Because I... I am in my very third week of parenting, which means that I now know everything there is to know about parenting and will lecture everyone and everyone who comes in my way.
So... Oh yeah, sorry, just in case you wanted to know...
This is you, me, and the GPS section, where you can hear my fine driving skills as the GPS system constantly says, recalculating?
I can't believe you were lost again.
Are you actually blind?
Legally, recalculating?
I can't believe you circled your house three times now.
Do we go to do this again?
So I wanted to mention a few things that...
That I've sort of found helpful or useful in parenting the gorgeous, lovely, and gassy Isabelli.
Which is that...
Right.
Okay. Which is, you know, one of the things that I have found...
And I knew that this was going to happen, so I've been sort of alert for it.
And I have been...
Trying to make sure that I don't fall into this trap.
And there's something Christine and I were talking about last night, because Isabella now has her big feeds where she, you know, basically inhales my wife and then spits out a broken breast.
And then she has, you know, what Christina says, oh, it's a comfort feed, right?
In other words, she's not hungry.
She just is, you know, she needs comfort.
She's using, Isabelle is using the breast to soothe herself so that she can go to sleep and that sort of stuff.
And I really wanted to...
To tell Christina and to remind myself, and I'll talk about how this also occurred for me, that we don't know.
We don't know.
We can't say, oh, she's now comfort feeding.
Because that actually automatically creates a kind of mindset where if she's hungry and she needs to feed, then we're sympathetic.
But when Christina was using the term, oh, she just needs to comfort feed, I actually felt less sympathetic to Isabella for needing to comfort feed.
And it's like, well, but we don't know.
She's growing hugely.
She might need all of these challenging things.
She might need food that we can't even imagine or think about.
We don't know when things are passing from her stomach to her intestines to her bowels.
We are fairly clear when they're performing the exit scenario, but exit stage everywhere.
But we don't know. Comfort feeding is a diminutive term.
It's almost an insulting term.
Do you really need that second piece of cheesecake?
Or is it just comfort food?
I found it to be very important, and I'm saying this with regards to Christina, but it also happens to me.
I found it to be very important to avoid conclusions.
Because once we have a conclusion about what Isabella is doing, once we have a why to the what, then...
We're kind of not open to new information and we kind of have a judgment about what is occurring for her.
Saying it's a comfort feed, we don't know.
We're not her. We don't know.
And when Christina was saying, oh, it's a comfort feed or whatever, I said, well, are we sure she's not swallowing?
And you can tell when a baby's swallowing.
And so she was swallowing.
It's not a comfort feed, right?
We're also not sure how much milk is being produced per boob, right?
And so we don't know.
We think it's a big feed, but she just might not be getting...
That much food, right?
And that's a problem.
So then, of course, she's going to be hungry, you know, or want to feed 15 minutes later because she didn't get enough food.
And so that's not the same as a comfort feed.
That's like, I got to eat feed, right?
And so really trying to focus on with Isabella to not come to conclusions about having a story or having a sense of mythology, and it is all, you know, largely mythology because We don't know.
It's our first kid and we don't know her.
Even if it wasn't, her individuality could be very different or would be very different from her other kids.
So I've really tried to help us avoid this coming to conclusions about what Isabella is doing and why.
And instead to remain open and curious and to be honest and admit Well, we don't know.
And there's so much we don't know.
Why is she upset at the moment?
Well, you know, we go through our list like every parent does, right?
Diaper change, or is she hungry?
Is she tired?
You know, that kind of stuff.
Is she warm? Too warm or too cold?
And, you know, God love her, she's a fantastic kid and very rarely cries.
I was just reading the other day that average baby cries an hour a day.
Well, so far, and I think it's her good nature and I think some Reasonably calm parenting.
She only cries literally maybe two minutes a day.
Maybe. And of course we spoil her rotten because you can't spoil a kid who's a couple of weeks old.
So, trying to make sure that we don't come to conclusions about why she's doing what she's doing, because we don't know, right?
Just keeping that honest ignorance up front and center is important.
And I had something interesting that happened to me yesterday and today.
We make a bit of a joke, Christina and I, and I'm sort of, you know, trying to peel this back a bit, because it can be fun, but you can go too far.
And the joke is, you know, that Christina's calm and soothing and the breast and feeding and, you know, all that.
She coos and sings. And daddy is like big stimulus, you know, and exhausting and so on.
And I, you know, I recognize that that's a tendency, so I make sure I rein it in and don't inflict my animation on her in the way, say, that I do on you, but rather and sort of open and try to absorb and mirror her, right?
So if she makes an O with her mouth, I will make an O back.
If she craps her pants...
Well, anyway, you get the idea.
And so it was so interesting because I had two...
Two instances, one early this morning and then one this afternoon.
Jake and I went for a pretty long hike through the woods.
It was a crunchy snow, half full moon.
It was really quite beautiful. Romantic, I think you know what I mean.
You know, we shared body warmth.
So one early this morning and then where I'm normally very good at soothing Isabella because she really likes to be walked and sung to and I put on this outrageous but soft falsetto and sing to her, Cold Porter tunes she seems to really like.
And I sort of picked her up and found like two times that I simply could not comfort her.
I'd pick her up and she would get more upset.
And again, we're really trying to avoid the word fussy because, again, that's a diminutive and kind of insulting to her.
And she's actually trying to really help us, as I said.
And I actually found myself, the next time I wanted to pick up Isabella to comfort her, I found myself...
Cautious, hesitant, and almost, I say this almost, I'm going to be really frank with everyone, maybe if you're a parent you've experienced this as well, almost ready to be offended, ready to have her reject my comforting.
I mean, isn't that crazy?
But this is the way that it worked for me, right?
I want to be as honest as I can be about this experience.
And I noticed this about myself.
I was like, oh, well, now I'm going to comfort you and I'm not going to be pleased if you can't be comforted.
It's like, oh my god, could you imagine a worse way to comfort anyone, let alone a baby, a worse way to comfort anyone, let alone a baby, than to say, you better be comforted or I'm going to be offended.
I mean, my god, how crazy can you be?
And by that I mean me, right?
I mean, it's nutty. Because she's not...
You know, the drive...
I'd sort of have to mull over further where it might come from.
Probably parents. Who knows, right?
But the drive to ascribe motive to a baby is strong.
Strong, strong, strong. Which is why people get so mad at babies, right?
In the way we don't get mad at the weather.
We don't get mad at babies, right?
But the drive to ascribe motives, like...
I would sit there and some of it comes out of a possible guilt.
Was I too overstimulating to her earlier when I was showing her modern art?
And I put a song on.
It was a relatively sedate song, but I put a visualizer on Windows Media Player so it kind of...
Kaleidoscope sort of bounced with the music and I held her up and I sort of sang along with the song to her and I thought, oh my god, it was too overstimulating.
Now I can't comfort her because she now associates me with overstimulation and I've, you know, done this and that to the track.
Like, you start going, at least I start going off on these, like, crazy tangents of, you know, ascribing motive.
And, oh, well, you see, this is what's happening now because I did this.
And it's not even so much like I've decided it.
It's like I'm I'm frankly worried about it and I'm guilty that maybe I've overstimulated her and now I can't soothe her because blah blah blah blah, right?
Although I'm of course very sensitive to over, you know, the trick is if you don't know, right?
I mean, if you're interacting with a baby and they're engaged in their eye contact and they seem, you know, they can't smile.
She won't be able to smile for like another month or two.
At least not without being followed by some Krakatoa eruption south of the border.
But... If a newborn, if they're eye contact with you and you're, you know, smiling or singing or talking to them or whatever, if the newborn breaks and looks to one side or another, it means that they've had enough stimulation and you should, you know, bring out the flashbangs and the air horns.
But... It comes out of this thing of, oh my god, what have I done?
I've overstimulated her for my own gratification.
Now I can't comfort her and this is going to be it in terms of comforting Isabella for the rest of time and it's all going to be Christina and I'm going to be rejected.
You get these snowball, at least I do, these crazy snowball scenarios.
It's like, oh my god, what have I done?
And I have to sort of say, look, it's not about you, Steph.
You know, it's not about your thoughts, your fears, your whatever, right?
It's, you know, be there for Isabella, right?
Look her in the eye, sing softly to her, rock her slowly, speak soothingly, stop making it about the fact that you may have played a song to her with a screensaver.
I mean, looking back on it, it's lunatic, right?
But this is what...
It can happen to me. When I say it can happen to me, it's happened like Once, right?
But I want to make sure that I sort of catch these things, right?
Stop prescribing motives.
Because then it's like, oh, so now I overstimulate you once, and now you're punishing me by not letting me soothe you.
Oh my god, it's like, what am I doing?
This is nuts! And I mean, I'm trying to be gentle with myself, and I am, because, you know, I catch it and I sort of notice it and return my focus to her rather than to me and what I've experienced or what I'm thinking or what crazy motives I'm projecting into this innocent, helpless, beautiful, treasured Fantastic, magical, lovable, good-natured baby.
Oh my god, she is so good-natured.
I mean, I'm incredibly blessed that way.
But that's just something I have to really watch.
I hope I'm not feeding myself, but man, it's something that you have to watch if you're a parent.
And maybe you don't, right? Maybe it's just me, but the ascribing of motives, the feelings of guilt for something you may have done that may have been suboptimal, and then followed by the fears of rejection, followed by the resentment that feeling controlled, and oh my goodness, go through this entire season of a soap opera in like 10 seconds.
You know, thus rendering you completely useless to your baby, right?
It becomes a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy.
Oh, and I can't comfort her. I did these bad things.
I overstimulated her. Now she's punishing me.
I'm so bad. And then, of course, you can't comfort her.
So, intercepting those thoughts, those escalations, those catastrophizations, and substituting a rational thing, which is like, look, she's got a brain a quarter the size of her adult brain.
She is eternally in the now.
She has no memory of the screensaver that has any significance whatsoever.
You know, she's securely attached to you.
You know, as I said, there's two places she sleeps.
Christina's arms after breastfeeding and my chest.
And so, of course, you know, and once, you know, I spent those five seconds talking myself out of the tree and sort of returning my focus and saying, it's not about you or how sensitive you are to whether you can comfort her.
It's about focusing on Isabella, being there for her as a parent, you know, and soothing and, you know, doing the soothing things with eye contact and with good intent and then, you know, see what happens.
And of course, of course, right?
I mean, she was perfectly soothable by me for the rest of the day, right?
And So, anyway, I just sort of wanted to point that out, that the scribing of motives, oh, it's a comfort feed.
Well, we don't know that, right? We don't know how much milk she got last time.
One of the problems with breastfeeding is that you can't tell, right?
You don't know how much food she's getting.
I mean, you fill up half a bottle, you can see it go in, right?
But with breastfeeding, you can't really tell, right?
Other than the fact that there's a slight hissing sound like a punctured balloon in the...
The breast deflates. But you can't tell.
Especially if she's going through cluster feeds.
She's just probably not getting as much as she would really like to.
So she's going to want to feed again quickly, but it's not out of comfort.
It's out of necessity. Or we don't know.
Maybe it is out of comfort, but we don't know.
And so I'm really trying to avoid projecting things that are going to alter my behavior towards Isabella.
Because she completely deserves consistency in her parenting.
Ascribing motives to Isabella that will in any way, shape, or form alter in any way, in any fundamental way in particular, in any way, the way that I interact with her.
Oh, calling her fast defeat. Oh, she's upset because I have stimulated her.
Oh, my God, I can't comfort her. Oh, she's punishing me.
Whatever, right? That's all nonsense, right?
And I have to not... Do that.
It's completely unfair, right?
But it's so...
You know, when it strikes, it really feels like a slippery slope, right?
Which is why it's so important to be alert when it's happening and to refocus on her.
And it's not about me. It's about being there for her.
So I just sort of wanted to mention that.
Maybe if you're a parent out there, you could tell me if I'm completely insane or whether this happens to other people as well.
But I just wanted to sort of mention it.
And the other thing, because I've talked about things that are not surprising to me is...
Oh my god, just how completely beautiful and precious a baby is.
Oh my god, she is so beautiful.
You know, I mean, I'm not exactly Stonewall Jackson when it comes to facial expressions, but I find Isabella is so fascinating and beautiful to watch because...
Her facial expressions are so intimately connected and wired up to her emotional state.
Or maybe it's perceptual and sensual state.
I don't know. Emotional maybe. But oh, she has emotions.
But it is so fascinating to see the absolute and beautiful and open transparency of her experience.
You know, I can tell when she gets a little, you know, a little bit of gas turns a corner of the intestine.
I can tell her facial expression.
When she's curious, when she's engaged, when she's focused.
It is just fascinating to watch.
She's so fascinating because her facial expressions are constantly so fluid, so animated, so accessible, so open, so undissembling, so non-manipulative, so non-descending.
This is the portrait.
Her face is the portrait of her feelings.
There is no dissembling.
And that is a completely beautiful thing.
And, of course, I want, I want, I want to be as available to her as she is to me, right?
Because, I mean, you can't say it's generosity of spirit, although it does have to be earned, I think, through consistent and affectionate parenting.
But... She really is available to me as a human being.
She is an open book.
And children are.
And it's good that they are.
And babies in particular. I can't say, right?
But she is a completely open book to me.
I mean, I can be quite emotional about this.
But it really is such a beautiful thing to see how open she is.
And, oh my God, do I want to...
Do I ever want to...
Be that for her, right?
Be that available.
Be that open to her.
I'm so sorry. I'm just getting some gas.
So, let me get a little windy for a sec, but I just wanted to sort of point that out.
I want to be that open, that available, that accessible to her.
Oh, no, I don't have my...
Do I? Do I not?
Do I? Do I not?
No, I don't have my credit card, so we'll get gas another time.
I want to be that available to my daughter because it is a beautiful thing to see.
It just is an absolutely beautiful thing to see.
And that has been a real...
That is a real instruction to me in what it means to be available to someone.
She's not hiding anything.
She's not self-conscious about her facial expressions.
And... She is just completely wide open to the sky.
And, I mean, yeah, that has something to do.
I mean, I try to...
You know, and this is funny.
Okay, I'll talk about this as well.
This is something that I'm really trying to be aware of.
Aware of? It sounds like I'm going to tell you a state secret.
I'm really trying to be aware of this when it comes to...
It can be very emotional for me.
Having eye contact with Isabella, and it's not because I have no problem in particular eye contact with Christina, we will look into each other's eyes and it's a beautiful thing, but I do feel such an overwhelming passion of love and worship and devotion to this amazing and beautiful creature who Christina and I summoned from the force of our love.
I really... Such powerful and beautiful and fierce emotions arise in me with regards to this amazing and beautiful child.
And initially, my instinct was to turn away from her when my eyes filled with tears, when I felt that degree of passion about her.
To turn away because I thought, oh, she's just going to be confused or she's not going to understand or this or that or the other, right?
And I thought, well, no. No, she's open to me.
She doesn't have a choice. She's a baby.
If I was not responsive to her, she wouldn't be open to me.
I've certainly been around babies who are like that.
I've earned it through consistent and loving parenting, but she's open to me.
I do want to give her that eye contact.
If I'm feeling very passionate, very strongly...
At that moment, I will continue the eye contact.
I will wipe my eyes and, you know, sob.
If I sob, I sob, right?
And I, you know, I won't make it too loud or whatever.
But if I feel that force of passion...
While I'm looking into Isabella's eyes, I will, you know, hopefully, she doesn't have dreams about crazy laughing clowns when she gets older, crying clowns, but I want to have that openness and honesty with her about what I'm feeling in the way that, you know, somewhat involuntarily, she has that openness and honesty about what she's feeling with me.
I really want to keep that communication open so that she sees what it is To be fiercely and devotedly worshipped and loved.
So she sees that in my eyes.
I want her to know that there is that iron bond, that unbreakable devotion to her and what is going to make her happy.
And I want her to absolutely trust that and I trust that she is going to see that even before she can speak in my eyes.
And so I really want to not turn away when I feel shaken by the forces of passion for my child.
And continue to have the eye contact with her so that she sees the passion and hopefully understands the degree of devotion, love, and worship that I have for her.
And I think that will make for a stronger and richer relationship over time.
So anyway, I hope that you are enjoying.
I thank you for those who said that the parenting series is helpful.
I hope that you're enjoying them. I really, really do appreciate people's interests.
And I also really, really appreciate The fantastic tips that other parents have given me have been really, really helpful.
So thank you so much. As always, I look forward to your donations and have yourselves an absolutely wonderful week.
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