"Sometimes you ask yourself…should I have tattooed my forehead?"

I don't know if any of you do this too but one of Moozh and I's favourite things to do is cuddle in bed at night and watch movie trailers. In most cases, it exonerates me from feeling like I have to see the movie because often the trailer is better than the movie. But sometimes I'm surprised. I just had one of those moments.

I just watched the trailer for The Other F-Word. Immediately it made me think of my sister who just got married because her journey into parenthood is likely going to be turbulent and beautiful and she and her husband are going to be those parents on the playground that none of the other parents understand. My sister is an ass kicker and she and her husband have a unique and dynamic view of life. Which means they are also going to be those parents on the playground that all the other parents wish they were as cool as. As I watched the trailer, which I suggest that all of you do, I had a serious moment of realization. A realization that what the Lord has prepared for our lives will drastically surprise and change us. Life is meant to teach us and through the process of giving your life to various things (marriage, parenthood, career) you become better, you become more. Inherently parenthood teaches wisdom, grace, patience, selflessness because those are the things that are required when you are responsible for a small, dependant being. The movie profiles all of these punk rock icons, from Mark Hoppus of Blink-182, Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers and Tony Hawk, through their processing of their fatherhood; from "the ultimate anti-authoritarians become societies ultimate authorities".

I had coffee today with a lovely good friend who is due in December. She had moved through the various baby showers, through buying a stroller and putting a car seat in her car. But the part of our conversation that had me thinking all day long, was when she spoke of becoming pregnancy, of moving through pregnancy and thinking through the permanence of having a child, and how it drastically changes how you think about your own development. You don't think about your family of origin, about conflict, about your marriage in at all the same way anymore. You have to filter it through the lens of this person who is brand new and strange to the world. Even in marriage you can remain in certain levels of selfishness (though it is hard) but in parenthood you can't. The paradigm can't survive beneath that. Yes we all know people who are selfish and act for themselves. But I don't find I ever look to those people and validate their parenting, or think of them as parents at all. Parenthood seems to be a specially designed racetrack that manages to drastically change the way we think about our world, ourselves, our life.  Because we have what feels like many friends right now that are expecting, I find myself musing often on how not ready I am for that commitment. I also think about little people running around my house one day with Moozh's mannerisms and looks of his fitted into the puzzle of their faces but I realize that there is a desire of preparation for that. The independence I struggle so hard to reconcile. My introspection. My sleep schedule. These are not things very accommodating to children. At the end of the day, Moozh can put himself to bed, he can feed himself and occupy himself while I put on makeup and surf pinterest.

But what this movie helped me to see (and did it in such a breathtaking way) is that parenthood changes people in spite of themselves. It helps to wear away at your selfishness and your personal gain slowly and discreetly. Flea has this amazing quote in it. "My children gave me life, you know. They gave me a reason." Friggin' Flea! But what I also like about the film is that it displays that the parents in it didn't just blend and bleed into this banal, khaki parent figure. They still have passions, opinions, things that set them apart. Their children will grow up understanding that their parents' life goes beyond their children.

I also find it infinitely quotable:
"Maybe punk rock was never meant to grow up. But it did."
"There's nothing in the punk rock ethos that prepares you for children."
"Maybe the way we're going to change the world is by raising better kids."

I think parenthood will also, as much as we may not want it to, help us to understand our parents even better. Undoubtedly, we will see and maybe even understand why they made certain decisions and why they thought certain things were right. Ultimately though, it will unify generations of people that have all made the same discoveries and thought the same things through the journey through becoming at times what you've despised. It's a good journey.