tropes and emperors

My family has had a great time buying Christmas and birthday gifts for DJ.  They all get so excited about finding the right thing to make him happy.  This, among other things, makes me think I’ve done a good job choosing my baby’s daddy.

We watch Teen Mom and 16 and Pregnant.  I’m not sure why, although I think the two are excellent cautionary tales.  Several times an episode one of the young women will say something about hoping an experience will change the baby’s father in a positive way, and I inevitably yell back at the television Choose your babydaddies wisely!  The young men don’t seem to change, on the whole.  The decent ones seem decent, if immature.  The awful ones stay awful.  The women get sad around the edges.  I don’t think any of them change much outside of life experience.  I don’t think anyone changes much, not without a great deal of effort.

DJ would always have been a good father.  Even if we’d had the worst luck as teenagers.  Even if we’d had unfortunate timing as struggling twenty-somethings.  In our thirties it might not always be easy – but let’s say easier.  I think you can tell a lot about parenting potential long before there’s a baby.  Or an embryo.  The trope about how a man treats his mother is telling.  Also the one about waitstaff.  But what you really want to know is how he treats you, and that’s more than romance and holidays.  Several winters ago I noticed that my windshield was always mysteriously clear after snowstorms.  DJ shrugged and said he was waiting for his car to warm up anyway.  He thinks his best qualities are the acceptable minimum.

I’ve been telling people that this pregnancy is like being a Roman emperor without the bloodshed.  DJ has found a million ways to make my life easier, from changing our sheets by himself to bringing me water while I recline on the sofa.  He’s read as much as I have about baby having and raising.  He’s doing a good job of making me feel the most important without making the grandmas feel unimportant.

There’s that other trope about showing your daughter you love her by being good to her mother.  I have, in my life, found the opposite to be true as well.  So, really.  Choose your babydaddies wisely.  They don’t change much.