Parenting and Time

An existential shift

The birth of any child is an event, but the first of my first child changed the way I experience time. Those first days and weeks after in particular it appeared that time moved differently than I had ever known it to. One thing I will never forget in one of our early walks with the baby in his stroller is spotting another family with a baby, and realizing I would never be able to look at families with babies the same way again. Before, there could be nothing less unusual that a family and a baby together. Now, I realized, shockingly, that these people were not merely a type, not simply a common occurrence, but actual, specific people who only very recently had added this new member of their family, who would remain a baby for scarcely any time at all. Family-with-baby had given way to other people who, like me, had been caught in a rapid current, one which would sweep them along a great distance in the blink of an eye.