I just turned 1
Reflections from my first year as a dad.
My son just turned one - and in a sense, so did I.
In the lead up to becoming a dad and throughout my first year, I found myself craving more open and honest stories and reflections from other parents. So this week, I want to share some of my own.
This is not advice. Just my personal experience.
Every baby and situation is different, but this is not something we’re meant to go through alone (more on that below).
Let’s get into it…
A few months before Drew was born, Alexis and I met with a birth doula. At one point during the conversation, the doula asked us if we had any fears about the birth process.
Alexis took a few seconds and responded:
“I don’t know…death?”
At this point, I expected the birth doula to make that fear sound silly. To talk about how unlikely it is in 2025 for a women (or their babies) to die during childbirth. But instead of invalidating Alexis’ fear of death, the birth doula took her time and said something I’ll never forget:
“Oh…that’s a valid fear. Because in a way, you will die.”
Now she has our full attention.
Our birth doula continued:
“The pre-parent version of you is getting ready to die. On the day your first child is born, the person you were will die, and the person you’re becoming - Alexis the mom and Brian the dad - will be born.”
For Alexis and I, this idea felt like a breath of fresh air.
Because for us - given how fully and completely we lived our pre-parent lives - we were ready for that version of us to die.
Which leads me to a lesson that I think can be applied to any big life transition we go through:
The more you squeeze the juice out of this chapter of life, the more ready you’ll be for the next chapter.
→ By the way…you can zoom out and apply this idea to your life as a whole: the more you squeeze the juice out of life itself, the more ready you’ll be for death…but that’s an article / book for another day.
I’m grateful that Alexis and I took full advantage of the time, freedom, and flexibility we had before becoming parents.
We lived nomadically in Airbnbs across the U.S. before we got married.
We spent 6 weeks in Southeast Asia before we started “trying.”
We designed and self-facilitated a retreat for just the two of us before our son was born.
We spent lots of time with friends.
We went out till 4am and slept till noon.
We wasted days doing absolutely nothing.
→ You can honestly do any of these things once you become a parent - the first two would just be a bit more challenging, and the last two would require a babysitter. Point is, do the things that are much easier to do now than they will be if / when you have kids.
The first year of Drew’s life was hard and exhausting at times. But there was no yearning for our pre-parent lives. That chapter felt complete. That version of us laid to rest.
RIP ✌️
A few months after Drew was born, I found myself struggling to articulate the shift in identity I felt.
So I Drew it instead:
I called this my PIE-dentity and shared it on LinkedIn, where it got more engagement than anything else I’ve ever posted.
As I said back then:
Making space for being a dad hasn’t meant losing parts of myself. It’s just meant those parts becoming a little bit smaller / taking up less space - at least for now.
A month after I shared that, I found myself in Saratoga for two nights with my favorite band, Phish. For that weekend, my PIE-dentity looked more like this:
The point is - being a dad has become a huge part of who I am. I embrace and love that. But at the same time, I (like you) contain multitudes.
My PIE-dentity captures a moment in time, and is fluid - it shifts from month-to-month, week-to-week, even hour-to-hour based on where I’m directing my time, energy, and attention.
Some slices of the pie are constants. Some are too small to make it into either of the above snapshots, until a delicious meal turns me into a food critic for like 15 minutes.
There were so many things I loved about my pre-parent life that I still love. I just experience them through a new filter as “Brian the dad.”
Things That Have Been Hard:
Feeling like there’s never enough time.
I shared something on LinkedIn a few years ago about why I've never liked describing my life as "busy."
I wrote then that part of being the CEO of your life is owning your schedule - not letting your schedule own you.
But this year, Drew’s schedule kind of owned me.
It seems like this is a pretty common experience for new parents - when you have kids, your time is no longer fully yours. Especially in the early years when your child is so dependent on you for their survival.
This has forced me to get clearer around my priorities and seriously recalibrate how I work - something I’m still working on.
Feeling exhausted - again, not always, but certainly at times.
Drew didn’t start consistently sleeping through the night until he was 9 months old. I know for some babies that happens sooner, and for some that happens later. For us, this meant 9 months of waking up between 1-5am to soothe / feed Drew almost every night - some nights more than once.
My work requires a good amount of travel. Before becoming a dad, I would come back from an energetically demanding work trip, sleep in, and take a day to recover. Now I come back and jump right into dad mode to give Alexis a break.
A few months ago, I was venting about this to a friend who’s been a dad for 6 years. He (half) jokingly replied:
“I haven’t recovered from a trip in 6 years.”
The absence of a true village.
I think this is the biggest issue with modern parenting, which enables the two challenges above.
Others have researched and written at length on this topic, namely David Brooks in his Atlantic piece “The Nuclear Family Was a Mistake” and Beth Berry in her article “In the absence of ‘the village,’ mothers struggle most.” I also tried to capture this idea in my last newsletter, where I wrote about how we progressed to the point of isolation, a phenomena that’s especially apparent as a parent 🤓
The TL;DR: we used to live in multigenerational communities where parenting was a shared responsibility. There were always children around, and you were always contributing to their safety and development. When you had a child, it was your turn to receive the support of the community.
Now when you have a child, it often means it’s your turn to suffer - especially if you don’t have close proximity to familial support, or the financial means to buy back the village.
Things That Have Helped:
Cultivating a village as best we can.
Alexis and I are blessed with friends and family who are willing and able to help + the means to afford paid help when we really need it.
We chose to live in Park Slope, Brooklyn because it’s the closest thing I’ve seen to family utopia. We’re surrounded by other new parents, and have lots of friends who became parents before us. Learning from their experience and choosing parent role models has been invaluable.
All this means that Drew has far more aunts and uncles than we have siblings. Sharing the joy of Drew with our closest friends and family has been one of my favorite parts of this last year.
It’s also cool to see that the joy goes both ways, which you can read more about in my friend Rachel Saslaw (aka Auntie RaRa’s) article, “I’m no longer convinced that babies ruin friendships.”
Making it fun.
There are countless moments throughout each day where we can fulfill our parental duties by simply going through the motions - or choose to make it fun.
We strive to do the latter as often as possible.
For example, in our house, everything has a song. This started in the hospital when Drew got out of the NICU and we welcomed him into our room to 50 Cent’s In Da Club (which happened to be the song playing the minute he was born because go shawty, it’s your birthday).
When it’s time to give Drew a bath, we sing a medley of:
And of course, “Bathtub Drew”
And whenever we change a poopy diaper, we recite a reggae song we made up called “The PoopyMonsta” - it’s highly complex but if you’re interested and eager to learn, I can probably teach it to you.
Drew and I have also made dozens of “music videos” to some of my favorite rap songs. None involve AI and most are NSFW, but if you’ve read this far and you’re curious, shoot me a message and I’ll send you one I think you’d like.
A strong partnership.
This one feels obvious but it’s worth mentioning. I can’t imagine what the last year would’ve been like if Alexis and I didn’t have each other through all of it.
Especially when one or both of us were exhausted, all the work we did on ourselves and our partnership before becoming parents - particularly when it comes to how we communicate - really came in handy.
→ By the way - a strong partner doesn’t have to be your husband or wife. I was speaking with a friend who’s a single mom recently, who voiced her deep appreciation for the partnership she feels with her mom and sister. The important thing is having someone who can cover for you when you’re taking care of yourself - whether that be taking a 5-minute shower or going to Third Nature Summer Camp, as the aforementioned single mom has done multiple times 😎
Things I’ve Loved:
Now feels like a good time to emphasize that - through all the above - this has been the best year of my life.
There’s so much I can say here, but I’ll try to distill it down to 3 things:
Showing Drew the world and seeing everything through his eyes of pure joy and wonder.
Drew looks at nature, a spatula, the inside of our fridge, people he’s become familiar with, Alexis, and me with such genuine joy and awe - it helps us see all of those things (ourselves included) in that way as well.
This turns mundane daily activities like eating, walking outside, and frequenting some of our favorite neighborhood establishments into spirited adventures.
And seeing his face light up when he sees me - an experience I’ve had hundreds of times - would be a top 100 experience of my pre-parent life.
As Michael Dean wrote on his Substack recently:
“Having a kid is possibly the most out-of-the-matrix and into-your-skin experience you can have. It’s something like ego-death—to switch from a language-based reality to one of burps, farts, coos, and smiles—and it challenges me to be slower, more perceptive.”
Witnessing Alexis blossom as a mom.
First off - watching Alexis give birth left me in awe of women (who are after all, the source of all life).
Then we got home and I realized how hard Alexis crushed pre-baby shopping.
Throughout this past year, seeing her continuously embrace the role of mom (the most important job in the world) with such grace, ease, laughter, and love, has been the honor of my life.
Staring at Drew together, saying things like, “Can you believe we made him?”
It’s hard to describe the feeling of looking at a baby who is literally half you, and half the person you love most in the world. Seeing your partner in them, and them in your partner. Feeling so connected, so in love…and then remembering that someone needs to prepare a bottle, feed him, change his diaper, and/or put him to bed.
We slowly but surely figure it out together. Old challenges get resolved, and new challenges arise. Yes it’s hard - and it’s the best thing ever.
One last insight I’ve gleaned that feels worth sharing:
In a society obsessed with making everything easier and more convenient…
Easier does not = better.
In fact, the opposite is often true.
The deepest sense of fulfillment comes from accomplishing hard things.
Now, that doesn’t mean we should intentionally make life hard for others.
But I find this helpful to consider…
Every time I approach a difficult decision, project, or conversation.
Every time I think about quitting and choosing an “easier” career than entrepreneurship.
Every time I’m hiking, skiing, or running, wondering if I should push myself just a little bit more.
And yes, every time my son woke up at 3am and all I wanted to do was stay in bed.
That last one especially isn’t fun. But it’s part of the package that includes so much joy, satisfaction, and gratitude.
Oh and one more thing - baby toys are corporate propaganda. They have just as much (if not more) fun playing with everyday objects you already have in your house.
With gratitude,
Brian