Some Traditions Were Meant to Be Broken

He may not look it, but this man is an excellent father.

It’s weird to be upset about someone buying you a really nice gift. Becky’s mom bought us a beautiful crib from Pottery Barn, and it really bothered me. It didn’t bother me that they bought us a really nice crib, that part is awesome. And it especially didn’t bother me that the crib was delivered to my house, because that was awesome too. What bothered me was that the crib  delivery included assembly. One minute we had an empty nursery, and the next we had a crib. All I had to do was open the front door and get out of the way. This meant that I was robbed of one of the time-honored traditions of fatherhood – spending hours trying to put together my baby’s crib.

Honestly, this bothered me. It seems like one of the steps on the fatherhood checklist that you have to cross out before they’ll give you a baby. For thousands of years, fathers have been pushed to frustration by the process of assembling a bed for their babies. I’ll bet half the reason Moses’s dad sent him down that river was that he was so frustrated from weaving that frickin’ basket. And me? I got totally screwed out of this tradition.

I thought about disassembling the crib in order to rightfully gain my spot in the fatherhood club, but then I remembered that just because something has always been done a certain way doesn’t mean it’s the right way. Dad’s used to have to ride a horse to work. They used to have to heat their homes with firewood. They used to not have the internet. Those are major changes in the ways dads operate these days. Spending a few hours assembling a crib seems pretty minor in comparison, so I think it will be okay. I just needed to accept the fact that it’s okay that it’s a bit easier to be a dad these days than it used to. Now, if someone would just buy me a diaper changing machine, then we’d really be making some progress as a society.

*photo appears courtesy of happilymotherafter.blogspot.com