One Year of Parenting!
When the world was celebrating Christmas last year, we welcomed our son Nile to the world! “Oh, a Christmas baby!!”— we kept hearing from the doctors and nurses in the hospital. I didn’t grow up celebrating Christmas, but who knew my greatest cause for celebration would arrive on the Christmas day!
Looking back at the past year, Nile has been a constant source of unbridled joy for us. We are perhaps among the luckiest parents since I feel like we got almost all of the upsides and none of the downsides of having a new born at home. After the first eight weeks, Nile started sleeping mostly throughout the night. My personal sleep quality was basically unaffected after those first eight weeks. Not sure many parents of a new born can say that, so perhaps I owe a lot to Nile!
We did have plenty of help though. My in-laws flew from Bangladesh to stay with us for six months. My mother-in-law has essentially become a personal hero of mine. She has always been a homemaker throughout her life, but just observing how relentless she has been day-in-day-out is simply awe inspiring. She wakes up before the sun rises, says her prayer, prepares food for all of us, and then looks after Nile once she’s done. It’s a crazy amount of workload for a 60-year old, but she insists carrying out the responsibility with such rigor and precision that I can tell she enjoys having these responsibilities. In some sense, having a job with a very clear expectation of what you are supposed to accomplish today and then going to bed knowing you have done everything you were supposed to do on that day can be oddly satisfying. It’s not for everyone, of course, especially since many people I assume could be put off by the mundane nature of the work. Frankly speaking, observing my mother-in-law was partly a contributor for me to think of publishing something everyday. I myself noticed that whenever I published my monthly Deep Dive, I felt a sense of accomplishment. It actually made me think it would be nice to chase that feeling everyday!
Eventually, we did hire a nanny for Nile. Since I work from home, my presence at home perhaps has no obvious charm (sigh!) to Nile at this point. But my wife gets to enjoy work from home only half the time and goes to office for work for the other half. Nile doesn’t seem to wonder where his mom is throughout the day, but whenever my wife comes home from work, his body curls up and makes almost this automatic reflex with hands stretched outward to signal as if “can you please hold me, woman?” It’s a real treat for me to watch this ordeal. My wife’s face lights up like I have never seen before when she holds Nile after coming from work. I quipped to my wife the other day, would you please love me 20% of how much you love Nile? She asked me back, “how much do you love me if Nile is the scale?” I sheepishly had to mention “20%!” and then pointed out there’s a reason I only want 20% from her; you see, I am a fair and reasonable person!
While Nile acts like he wants to remain attached to his mother whenever he sees her, I noticed he is much more willing to copy what I do. The little guy is already learning to mostly borrow from his Dad! Nile would play with me for almost an hour at night before going to bed. He audibly smiles and tries to copy my hand gestures which he then shows to his grandparents the next day! But looking at how he closely observes me made me wish I actually was way cooler than I am (Sorry, Nile!).
It also made me realize if my son is looking at me so intently, there is a certain weight I feel in showing my best version to him as much as possible. Almost a decade ago, my manager at my old job in Bangladesh once mentioned to me that our lives are basically like “balance sheets”. Just as a company’s balance sheet contains almost everything that has happened since its inception, whatever happened with our ancestors and whatever our ancestors did, our genes contain all the remnants of the past. However, just like the recent history has obviously much more influence to a company’s balance sheet than what happened 50 years ago, our parents can have similar effect on us. Nonetheless, human beings are lot more complicated than “balance sheets” and I do see myself more as a “shepherd and not an engineer” for Nile. But since we both grow from the “same vine”, I want to be a good shepherd (great song!)
I recently came across this quote by Joseph Campbell while listening to a podcast:
“People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.”
There is hardly anything that made me feel alive more than looking at Nile smile! That may seem rather banal way to feel the rupture of being alive, but I personally sense it is indeed the deepest source of feeling alive. If we could only feel alive by climbing the Mount Everest or being Billionaires, the essence of life would be obviously beyond most of our reach. But mother nature has, fortunately, kept it far simpler than that. It doesn’t require us to keep accomplishing ever crazier adventures to feel alive; perhaps all most of us need is to just stare at our own offspring!
Merry Christmas, everyone! I will be taking some time off between December 25th and December 30th to keep staring at Nile for an uncomfortably long period. I hope to publish my annual letter on the 31st and then take another couple of days off in the new year before starting to publish everyday in 2026 from January 3rd!
