Learner Dad: It’s time to pause and accept how lucky we are to have kids

Well into my 30s, I still had a spark of dopey teenager in me who didn’t want to be a parent because parents aren’t cool

TIMES PAST: Our columnist recently dreamt about being single and drinking in a smoky pub with his housemates.  Picture: iStock 

I’ve been having the same odd dream recently. It’s a Sunday afternoon and I’m back in my early 30s, before my wife and kids came along.  I’m hungover in a strange city, which in fairness does sound like a lot of Sunday afternoons in my early 30s. There is a train to catch, back home I guess, but I have a kind of sleep paralysis and it’s touch and go if I’m going to make it. Most of my dreams involve missing a train, so nothing strange there.

What is strange is the other people in my dream. It’s a collection of all the guys I shared a house with, in the years between college and family life. All of these years have been rolled in together – last week I was in a smoky pub with a 1993 housemate from Carrigaline, who was drinking with an Italian guy I shared with back in 1997.   It’s a world away from my Sunday afternoons now, which are all about wellies and do we have ham in for their lunches tomorrow.

I always have the same reaction when I wake from these dreams. Relief. That’s what’s really weird about these dreams. I love having kids and all that, but I’ve always assumed that deep down, a large part of me would give anything to go back to lazy weekend days, when I could burn away a wet Saturday afternoon watching a black and white war movie from the sofa. (I always associate John Mills with feeling ropey on a couch watching Ice Cold in Alex.)

My dreams are telling me that I have no regrets about becoming a Dad and that I’ve never had it so good. This is hard to appreciate when you’re stirring the porridge on a Tuesday morning while checking if the lunchboxes made it into the dishwasher the night before. 

But I wonder if my subconscious is making a point, saying the past year has been tough with home-schooling and lockdown, but don’t forget what you have here. 

As much as you enjoyed your single life, it was time to move on.

That makes sense and reminds me of something a friend told me just after our first child was born. He had been a parent for about three years by then and he said it’s all about rolling with the phases and embracing the changes in your life. Don’t look back in anger, I suppose.

And I don’t. I had a second adolescence from my mid 20s to mid 30s at a time when other people were setting down and having kids. They’re out the other side now, with kids almost grown up, while I’m still doing a school run in my mid 50s. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Not that I think my way is better, it’s just that it worked out for me and I have no regrets.

The version of 'train-missing' me in my dreams would have scoffed at the life I have now. Well into my 30s, I still had a spark of dopey teenager in me. I didn’t want to be a parent because parents aren’t cool. (That teenager was right - parents can never be cool, it’s part of the job description.)

Anyway, I met my wife and we had two kids and here I am having nightmares about going back to my old life. It’s time to pause and accept how lucky we are that we were able to have kids.

I feel anchored now, glad that I don’t have to get a train back to my extended youth. For all that I might bitch and moan about being a parent, I can’t imagine anywhere else that I’d rather be at this stage of my life. Although I wouldn’t mind curling up and watching a bit of John Mills again, for old times’ sake.