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What’s Batman without Robin? But the physical realness of my wife’s pregnant body made the whole thing a lot less theoretical. You’ve got nine months or so to get your head in the game. Definitely pregnant. Some dads use their bystander status to justify not doing anything baby related. But I think you’re a New Dad. I think you should help in as many ways as you can and be a great sidekick. What’s peanut butter without jelly? Sidekicks are invaluable. Paint the baby’s room so your baby doesn’t get whacked out on paint fumes. Go to the billion doctor’s appointments and nod along, then look stuff up later. Sure, Robin’s main job is to help fight the Joker and keep the Batmobile gassed up, but I bet Batman keeps him around for the awesome foot rubs, too. Sidekicks do what needs to be done. Birth class is where you reacquaint yourself with the physical. 
That Means a Lot
It’s pretty cool to see something moving in another person’s stomach that isn’t an alien or something. You finally get to be the big spoon in bed. It’s proof that your boys can swim, even though that’s a stupid thing to be proud of. You’re finally allowed to talk to your wife’s stomach without her getting mad. You gain sympathy weight from many delicious sympathy sandwiches. These classes are totally worth doing so that you can bone up on epidurals, dilation, and contractions. You’ll learn all of the technical stuff and all the options for birth, and you’ll get to formulate a birth plan. A birth plan is your plan for how you and your wife would like the birth to go. To this end, you will learn a bunch of massages that are supposed to serve as an alternative to epidurals That said, most women don’t yell for less epidural once they get a taste. But attitudes and styles of birth are very different. Like, in one scene, Swedish people wandered around their Bundesmall, eating a Swedish Cinnabün minutes before giving birth. And then there was the scene with a woman from the Amazon jungle pausing to squat and give birth while shucking some kind of weird corn. Here Comes The Sun
Heck, it’s enough to make you proud to be an American! These videos are supposed to be about the wonder of life, not about making fun of fashion disasters. Most of all, you will learn to be sappy and loving to your wife and unborn child in front of other men. There’s nothing very macho about it, unless you think deep breathing and giving foot rubs is macho. Having a kid is gonna be one big reckoning with looking uncool. That’s why you should silently suffer these terrors. Have you ever felt crazy? Have you ever felt crabby? Did it make you feel better to have someone talk about it or not shut the hell up about it? Yeah, that’s why you are going to shut the hell up about it. It’s like she is a wizard now, but she’s still married to the village idiot. When you approach this mighty wizard, be humble. The wizard will grow angry if you ask her stupid questions. And this wizard is, well, a little moody. Unlike a wizard, a pregnant woman’s powers are based in science. Hormones, discomfort, and the general problem of fitting another human in a person’s body are the root of her powers. A Taste of Honey
Remember when you bit into that weird pickle right after you brushed your teeth? I’m guessing it’s like that. Or maybe it’s like when you sneeze and burp at the same time. We’ll never really know. Pregnancy is a mysterious process. It’s scary, and it’s weird. It’s also not your body. And until future generations fix this, us men will not have to carry babies in our wombs. So maybe we stop talking about it so women don’t get any big ideas. Nothing to see here, move along. So for now, love this wizard. Give her little foot massages, cook, and cater to this wizard. Mix the potions, vacuum, and be nice. Nobody wants to be turned into a toad. It used to be easy being a dad. You’d go to work, come home, pour a drink, and pass out by the fireplace. Every once in a while, you’d dole out advice or sign a check. I’ve seen old Super 8 footage of the three generations of dads before me. He seems unsure of whether this is to be a motion picture or a photograph, and he’s pissed about it. One time I remember getting him loosened up was when my brother got him to listen to House of Pain’s Jump Around on his Walkman. Why is that guy screaming? he asked. He’s still like that. But I give him a lot of credit for trying hard. My parents were divorced, so even driving down to get us every other weekend shows some hustle. How will you screw up your child? Was your dad distant? We all know what a mom is. Is that what a dad is now? Is a dad just a mom, but worse? A dad can josh you or tell you to buck up. He can comfort and tell you to walk it off. So much is demanded of moms. They can’t help but disappoint. Generations of staying remote and uninvolved have lowered the expectations for dads. There’s never been a better, freer time to be a dad. If you step up, you get to experience your kid and live an open life. And it’s easier to be embarrassed when your kid is crying and hand them off to mom. But you get no bonus points for doing that. You’re freaking out, but at least it’s ok to talk about it and not just bury the fear deep in your stomach like our dads had to. You might not be a natural. You might mess up here and there, but you must do so to get better at it.