Berlin forever
I once lived in Berlin. I was 19, and alchemically thin. I earned essentially no money, getting fired from dead-end jobs and doing nude photoshoots for local 'artists’, subsisting on partying and 10 cent Brötchen. I shared a single bed top and tail, read Russian literature, and played Shogun. It was amazing.
But, after a while, I noticed something. I would often meet people twice my age, still thin, still partying. This made me question things. No matter how amazing it is, you can't live in Berlin forever. That's why I had a child.
Not immediately. In fact, my wife and I delayed having a child for as long as biologically reasonable. By the standards of television, we are not the sort of people who have kids. We are travellers, finding our own way through the world. Since leaving home we have switched countries every couple of years. Neither of us have ever had a stable job in a stable company. Our family live on the other side of the phone, not the other side of the street. Friends 'back home' marry their high school sweethearts, have careers you can explain, and live near their parents. They have kids.
By our own standards, too, there were many good reasons not to have kids. Some positive: we had lots of things left to do and wanted to make the most of our time as a couple. Some neutral: neither of us were especially fond of or familiar with other people's children. And some negative: we feared that our lives would end when our children's began. Perhaps we would willingly give up our personalities, passions, and preferences. Perhaps they would be taken from us. Both were terrifying. We liked who we were.
But, 14 years after leaving Berlin, biology said now or never, and we chose now. You can't live in Berlin forever.
Leaving Berlin
This state of mind was not ideal preparation for fatherhood. You can't live in Berlin forever, but having a child was like leaving to live on an iceberg. I felt all the wrong feelings. When my wife held our tiny son for the first time, covered in blood and guts after he had near murdered her, she declared her instant love. I sensed what I was supposed to feel, but I wasn't feeling it.
Every newborn is different, but the first month or four are generally entirely oriented around sleep deprivation. This is true especially when you live 5,000 miles away from friends and family who would otherwise help. Our son would sleep, scream, poop, scream, eat, scream, vomit, scream, on a 2 to 3 hour loop. At no point could he be horizontal without vomiting, nor could he sleep while still. Newborns sound like they are dying when they sleep. My wife and lived in shifts, opposites to each other. This is all normal. But for every family, including ours, at some point something 'not normal' happens - whether in pregnancy, birth, or infancy. This is a new kind of stress, mortal fear, and that too is normal.
The first month turned me into an asshole. It is the only time my wife and my's relationship has truly frayed. I wrote a note to myself because I knew at some point I wouldn't remember. The title was "don't forget - don't have another baby!". 19 bullet points, 1,000 words. Reading back, it is a soup of parochial lunacy and guilt over missing feelings, combined with the realisation that I had left Berlin forever.
Double the love
My son is now almost one. As he grew and my sleep returned, I found the feelings I had missed. In fact, I found the feelings I had always missed. I love being a traveller, finding my own way through the world. But, when you are a traveller, after a while you come to realise that there are some things you will never have. These things matter most, and most people don't even notice that they have them.
Friends, family, and familiar faces, sustained across time. There is no substitute. There is no shortcut to a long time, and there is no route to community and belonging without commitment. Once you are a traveller, you can never un-sever your roots. While you were away, life went on.
For travellers, every day love is scarce: the world will not travel with you. I love my friends and family, but not every day, not every year. Those I've known longest I see a few times a year. Those I see more often I haven't known for long. A traveller has, if you are lucky, one roadside companion, one every day love. Mine is my wife.
And now, I have a son! And I love him! I love him every day, forever until we travel apart. I love him when he can only sleep in my arms, when all he wants to do is dance to a single Peppa Pig song over and over, and when each moment he is new again. Every day now I feel double the love.
Having a child gave me the roots I thought I could no longer have. It seems ironic now that having children felt like something for friends 'back home'. For people who have always had stability, community, and every day love. But what's another million to a billionaire? Before having a child I saw only what I had left to lose, and had given up on the things I had already lost. I now see that they were the exact gifts only my son could give me.