The Dark Night – Part 2

For Part 1 click here.

The first night Joelle got home, she screamed, cried and dropped baby F-bombs most of the night. The doctors said this would happen because of the traumatic experience of exiting the womb. Even though the doctors warned us, it didn’t make the dark night any easier (sorry, I didn’t know how else to work in the title).

It’s been six weeks since little Joelle Penny Jamreonvit arrived into our lives. I’m excited to see where the journey of parenthood takes us. I’ve been asked several times, “How’s it feel to be a father?” or a question of the same variety. It’s interesting because I don’t know how to answer that question in just a tweet or two. So here’s me attempting to answer that question with a little more than a tweet.

If you’ve been following my blog, you know my background was a little rough to say the least. I never really thought about and dreamed of having children like most people. I just wanted to survive myself. Why in the world would I spend time thinking about providing for other people when I was just getting by myself? If you were to have told me when I was in college, “We’ll give you a million dollars to NOT have children” I would’ve said, “You outbid yourself. I would’ve taken $50.”

When I found out our baby was going to be a girl, I was initially disappointed because, well, how do I relate with a girl? Having grown up without a father, I now know exactly what I was lacking as a child and all the issues they caused once I got older. As a result, I felt confident knowing exactly what to provide for a son. A girl, however, felt like a whole different ball game. Now what?

Once Joelle was born all that stuff didn’t really matter to me anymore. The abstraction of it all was gone. It went from being the “idea of parenthood” to “Oh Sh**! She’s here!” My background felt nonexistent. I didn’t care what gender the baby was. I was simply grateful she was healthy, my wife was okay, and that we had so much support from friends and family. So do I feel any different? The short answer is, “No.” I still have bills to pay and life is still happening. The long answer is “I’ve been more reflective on issues I hardly reflect on.” For example, I’ve thought much more about issues like child neglect, abortion, and the philosophy of parenting. My conclusions are these: 1) It takes an evil person to neglect your own child, 2) abortion is evil and 3) I don’t yet have a philosophy on parenting (I’ll save this one for part 3). However, if you’re curious, this was my old one: click here.


My role as a man has certainly expanded, and I embrace that responsibility. I know this flies in the face of my motto “Avoid responsibility whenever possible” but child neglect isn’t an option. My wife told me last night how much she appreciated how I’ve embraced fatherhood (she was a little nervous about this, I guess). In her words, I’ve been tender and patient with Joelle and even more helpful around the house. Things have been coming naturally, and I haven’t really thought about “What do to” much at all (Unless it’s time to change the diaper… then I make like a ninja and disappear.) Joelle is still a baby, so it’s not all that complicated at this point. She eats, sleeps and fills her diaper with regularity. The true challenge begins when she can start thinking for herself and actually drop real F-bombs. For now, I’m just enjoying this moment.

In addition, watching my wife tend to Joelle makes me love her even more. She’s an amazing mother. It’s interesting how that all indirectly works. She’s not taking care of me directly when she’s caring for Joelle, or vice versa, but as we fulfill our responsibilities as mother and father we grow closer to each other. That’s probably been the biggest surprise in this whole “having children” thing.

Part 3 will be posted next week and it will be The Jammer’s Philosophy of Rising Children.