My wife and I are due during Holy Week of 2021. We’re both full-time co-pastors, which means our kid isn’t just a PK (pastor’s kid), he or she will be a PKx2. Naturally, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for our child-to-be. “Sorry we missed your birthday, kid, we were busy telling people about how their sins killed God on Good Friday.”
The feeling of expecting is different than I imagined it would be. I suppose I thought pregnancy would be nine months of pure unadulterated bliss, full of belly touches, baby kicks and concrete hope. And let me be clear, those things are phenomenal. In the throes of such societal uncertainty, fist-bumping my child is about as cool as it gets. Even so, when people hear that we’re expecting, their response is often the same, “You must be so excited!” It’s an understandable response. And yes, it’s exciting. When I first found out we were pregnant I drove my father’s jeep around my hometown with tears in my eyes listening to Taylor Swift’s “1989” album. But let me honest, just once I want to respond to the excited exclamations from others and say, “Yeah, I’m excited, and terrified, and sort of wondering if I made a huge mistake deciding to bring a life into this mess.”
Nine months gives you a lot of time to think. What kind of a father will I be? What are my untouched and unprocessed sins that I will pass down to this innocent human being? Which of my many foibles and peccadillos will my child process with a therapist 30 years from now? Does a kid with co-pastor parent theologians have a snowballs chance at growing into a Christian person? Since it is a given that when we are born, we begin to die, what will it be to bring into the world a life that will one day be extinguished? Just what kind of a world will exist in March when my child breathes their first breath of life?
Beyond the existentialist questions stirring the feelings of my inner world, I have found the process of pregnancy as a man to be extremely lonely. My feelings were crystallized at our last midwife check-up. A lovely nurse had just finished telling my wife about the new mom’s Facebook group, and Instagram group, and post-partum support group, and young mom’s walking group, and new moms having a kid during a pandemic who are also Presbyterian pastors Zoom group (well, not really, but this group may in fact exist). This lovely midwife whose life’s work has been all things babies then asked what questions we parents-to-be might have. I sheepishly piped up, “Well, I was wondering if there were any groups for new dads?” The midwife gave me a surprised and slightly confused look. “No, there aren’t. Hmm. Well, no one has ever asked me that before. Hmm. I’ve never thought about that before. Hmm. I guess there should be.”
Now lest you’re thinking it ridiculous that the member of the couple who doesn’t have to undergo nausea, bloating, weight gain and fatigue is complaining, let me be sure to mention that it’s wonderful that women have companions for the strange journey their body endures for nine months. To watch my wife’s belly grow, to watch her preach the story of Mary’s pregnancy, has been to watch the unfolding of the miracle and mystery of human life. To undergo the advent of life in one’s body is to incarnate life — and that must be why Catholics venerate Mary, the God-bearer.
All of this makes me wonder if my pre-paternal loneliness is in some way the sad product of a culture of masculinity that robs men of experiencing together the intimacy, the wonder and the fear of becoming fathers. How could anyone possibly discern this grand transition of life alone? How could I possibly know what the heck I’m getting myself into?
And then there’s Joseph. What did he ponder as he watched the Messiah slowly emerge from his beloved’s womb? Mary sang a song, Zechariah offered a benediction, Elizabeth felt her baby leap for joy, but Joseph’s advent was quieter. He watched and waited — two things we feel more deeply this Advent than ever before. I’m doubtful his friends at the bar after work believed the whole “Mary is pregnant by the Holy Spirit” story, and that makes me think he was lonely, too. I suppose if Joseph and I were given the chance to socially distance at the brewery in town, we’d probably spend most of our time talking about the NFL, how the job’s going and what a wild world we live in. But I’d like to think that on beer number two I’d get the courage to ask him, “Joseph, what’s it like for you to be bringing this new life into the world?”
