Our Growing Family

Early one morning a few months ago, Mayla, our then-15-month-old daughter, walked into our room carrying a thin plastic tube that looked like a thermometer. She was wearing a pink hat with writing on the front I couldn’t yet read; I was still in bed, sleeping in as part of an early Father’s Day celebration.

Carly, my wife, followed her with a camera as Mayla approached the edge of our bed. “Give it to him!” she told her. She was quivering as Mayla handed me the tube that changed my life forever, again.

My initial reaction—jaw dropping, eyes widening, giant smile forming—was predictable: that classic combination of pure shock and unbridled glee, the what-am-I-supposed-to-say feeling that accompanies any revelation of big news. I was ecstatic. 

But then…then the news sunk in. Holy crap! We were having another kid! How were we going to provide for it? Where was it going to sleep? Will we have to go months without a paycheck like we did with Mayla since the new baby will also be born during the school year? What will Mayla think? What will our families think? What will our dogs think? I am going to be a father of two before I turn 30!

I went outside to the edge of our driveway to retrieve something from my car; I didn’t come back in the house until a half-hour later. I sat there, alone, for a long time, thinking, thinking, thinking. It was a beautiful day, I remember: mid-June, sunshine, no clouds. The car sat motionless in front of our house and felt small. I should go back in the house, I thought. I stayed in the car. 

Finally I went back inside. I needed something to do so I started washing dishes; there, scrubbing plates and bowls, looking out into our backyard, I thought about our new future with some combination of excitement, trepidation, and something I couldn’t identify: a feeling of stupidity, maybe, for not preparing more emotionally and logistically. Carly and I had discussed having a second child, of course, but we weren’t planning on trying to have one until a few months later, so they would be born during the summer months when we were both off from work. As two educators working in the public-school system, we had no maternity or paternity leave, so any days we took to care for our newborn child would be unpaid or taken from our (relatively paltry) banks of leave. Compounding my stress was the fact that a few days before, I had found out that I hadn’t advanced to the final round of interviews for a new job that would have paid at least double my teaching salary; one of the reasons I wanted the new position was to avoid this exact scenario of having to worry about finances when we decided to grow our family. Now, within the span of a few summer days, I didn’t get the job and we were having another baby. 

I experienced the entire spectrum of human emotion the day we found out we were having a second child. But the biggest question ate at me that day and for weeks after: Why wasn’t I more excited?

When we found out we were having Mayla, it was also a relative surprise, but everything—from picking the color of her nursery walls to choosing her name—felt so big, so important, so new that I didn’t have time or the mental capacity to worry about the things I was now worrying about with the second (I spent most of that extra brain space worrying about having a pregnant wife in the throes of a pandemic). 

The night we found out about Mayla, we watched What to Expect When You’re Expecting and treated ourselves to takeout; this time I spent most of the day in our home office researching Roth IRAs and made frozen pizza for dinner. With Mayla, we spent hours and hundreds of dollars designing her nursery; this time we debated even making one. With Mayla, we spent every spare moment preparing for her arrival, buying clothes, updating the baby registry, researching baby products; this time, life just kind of continued as normal. 

I felt awful, of course, for feeling this way; this was not how I wanted to welcome a new life into the world, worrying about logistics and finances. I didn’t want our second kid to think that I wasn’t, we weren’t, excited about them joining our family. I didn’t want them to think they were simply a financial burden. I didn’t want them to think we didn’t want them.

Then there was Carly, who was about to undergo a physically and emotionally demanding nine-plus months and who was as shocked as me that she was pregnant so soon. She was, naturally, processing a lot of emotions as well, and I was too caught up in my own to be there for her. For the first couple of days after we found out, I was not the husband I strive to be.

Finally, there was Mayla. I started looking at her differently: She had been the center of our universe for so long and now she would have to share attention and space and food and clothes with her little brother or sister. Sometimes, when I looked her in the eyes, I felt a pang of guilt: She didn’t know what was happening and how it would affect her. She had become my—our—everything and now that was going to drastically change and she had no control or say over it. How do you explain all of that to an 18-month-old?

I finished washing the dishes and took a deep breath.

Eventually, after a few weeks or maybe even months, I realized that two things can be true: I can be both truly excited about having another kid and worried about the logistics of bringing them into the world. It’s OK to be worried, I learned. It’s OK to give yourself some grace.

I realized, too, that my concern was all rooted in love: I was worried because I didn’t want our second kid to not have the best life we could offer them. It is part of my responsibility as their parent to make sure that their needs will be met, that we will be able to support them in every way we need to. Being a father encompasses more than emotion. We have to demonstrate our love in a multitude of ways: working hard to support our families, making meals and cleaning the kitchen after, taking care of those small, quotidian, often unsexy tasks that can easily fall through the cracks of a busy life. Why wasn’t I more excited when we found out we were having a second kid? I think that’s the wrong question. I think a better one would be: How can we make sure we show our love for this baby in every possible way?  

This website was borne of that goal, as was my new perspective on teaching and working and time itself. I used to think that a dad is failing if he doesn’t spend every spare moment with his child. Being present in their life is still the most important thing we can do, but fatherhood has other duties, too, and we’re not fulfilling our mission if we don’t perform those as well. We can show our love with our heart and our head. It is difficult, sometimes, to perfect that balance, but it’s worth attempting because it’s the most important role we’ll ever occupy.

And Mayla, well, we realized Mayla’s going to be fine. Most nights before we put her to bed, as she’s laying in Carly’s arms, her blinks getting progressively heavier as she clutches her doll, we ask her to say goodnight to baby. And my daughter leans over to my wife’s growing belly and kisses it softly.     

Join our mailing list!

Subscribe to the Essays of Dad newsletter, a weekly email with parenting stories, background on essays, book recommendations, and more.