Lately, when I can no longer wade through the relentless
newspapers reports of the impending financial apocalypse or endure another
television news bulletin all but declaring “the end is nigh”, I slip upstairs
to the nursery. I open the door gently so as not to wake the room’s sole
occupant. Then I ease myself into the rocking chair by the side of crib. There,
in the silence and the soothing pastel colours (painted clouds scudding along
the wall), I watch little Finn Hannigan sleep, the swaddling blanket gently
moving up and down with his every breath. And suddenly, for a few moments, the
outlook for us all doesn’t seem so gloomy anymore.
Towards the end of June this year, I read a report in the New
York Times which estimated it now costs the average American family almost a
quarter of a million dollars to raise a child from birth to the age of 18. A
statistic to make the parents of 10 and 4 year old boys shudder. That same
week, we held a family yard sale, a handy way of raising some petty cash while
clearing the house of stuff we no longer needed. Among the items practically
given away to customers that weekend (no, please take them) were a buggy, two
car seats, a feeding chair, and a baby’s swing. That was on a Saturday morning.
On Monday night, my wife discovered she was five months pregnant.
In the middle of the worst recession since the 1920s, in a year
when our household income is down about 30 per cent, and professional prospects
have never seemed dimmer, we brought a new baby into the world. Another mouth
to feed. Another boy to clothe and coddle. It was the most reckless, optimistic
and beautiful thing we could have done. Some might even argue it was selfish.
Yet, as Finn prepares to celebrate two months on earth this Christmas Day (he
hasn’t much planned apart from sleeping, eating and pooping), the man we dubbed
our October surprise has turned into our very own little anti-depressant.
It is almost impossible to remain downbeat and pessimistic when
you spend any time in his orbit.
We watch him kick and punch excitedly every time he’s released
from the blankets in which he’s imprisoned for so long each day. We gaze into
his baby blues as they widen and try to take in ever greater views of every
room he visits. We laugh at the way he runs his hand back and forth in front of
his face, hypnotising himself. These are cameos of wonder that light up our
lives and make us feel, well, any planet that brings forth somebody as perfect
as this can’t be all bad and/or might actually be worth fighting for.
He is also a cogent reminder of how much we over-complicate our
lives. He cries when he’s hungry, he sleeps as long as he needs to when he’s
tired, and sometimes, he just wants to be wrapped up and held in the arms of
somebody who loves him. Self-help gurus have made millions peddling mantras
that make a lot less sense than the simple rules he lives by. At a time of year
when parents are driving themselves demented questing for electronic gadgetry
for their children, here is a little man most content when lying on the couch
staring at the lights snaked around the Christmas tree.
At the end of each year, we are all advised repeatedly to occasionally
stop and smell the flowers, to savour the little things in life. Most of us
never, ever do. We’re too busy, too self-important. A new baby forces you to
take time out because, several times a day, you have to drop everything and
shove a bottle into his mouth. That urgent phone call you needed to make? It
has to wait. All those emails you need to respond to? They are put on hold. You
have more pressing business to attend to, marvelling at the way he
enthusiastically drains each ounce of his bottle, wishing you could make
everyone else in your life this happy just by offering them the most basic
food.
The great thing too is that he’s a gift that keeps on giving.
After the initial period of house arrest, we remembered what it’s like to have
a new baby out in public. To bring him into a supermarket or a coffee shop is
to witness the very best in strangers. As if uniquely designed to turn frowns
upside down, he draws people to him and they swoon and smile, better for the
experience. Not so much because Finn is especially handsome (which of course he
is!) but because he’s a glimpse of pure innocence, a snapshot of human
potential, a perfect little being not yet distorted and manhandled by the
outside world.
People look into that pram and see somebody staring back at them
unaffected by the daily diet of bad news, uninterested in wallowing in
ever-increasing circles of despair. Just happy to be here. A lesson there for
all of us this week. Out of the eyes of babes, etc…
(first published in
The Irish Daily Mail, December, 2010)
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