Marriage and the Elimination of Manhood (Part Two)

After the first few months of marriage, I was coping pretty well. I'd learned not to jump into the shower after my wife unless I want second degree burns (she likes the water a degree or two below boiling.) I'd learned that my opinions are second only to Oprah, which is pretty good I think. I'd learned my sun sign is only a small part of my astrology chart - whatever that means. I'd learned a lot of things that, as a man, I never knew before. And yet, as it turns out, I didn't know anything.

Togetherness
My wife and I were living in our little, two-bedroom apartment. One of the bedrooms was my office, so I had a place to display my junk. It's a bit odd that my stuff is junk, and hers is our décor, but I'd come to accept that my Army of Darkness collectables probably shouldn't be in the living room, and I was good with that. I still had a room to myself, some frozen burritos in the freezer. Poker night was still every Tuesday. Life was different, but aside from the occasional shopping trip to Bed Bath and Beyond (which, by the way, could use a sporting goods section), life was good. And then, just as I'm getting used to cotton ball dispensers, dried flowers and little baskets full of magazines, my wife drops the bombshell - we're going to have a baby.

Boy Oh Boy
It was the most exciting news of my life. I was going to be a dad. Elation beyond words. Of course what I didn't know is that that much joy comes with a price.

The first thing to go was my office - my refuge, my Fortress of Solitude. That was to be the baby's room. Obviously we couldn't have the baby staring up at Bruce Campbell with a chainsaw, now could we? I couldn't really argue with that, so into the plastic bins my wife bought to replace my old storage boxes went all my junk.

We didn't know if we were having a boy or girl, so my manly office space assumed a gender neutral quality, which in hindsight, was similar to me at this stage.

Out of the Frying Pan
If ever I needed reminding of where my place was in the family, now was the time I got it. I went from being my parent's son, to my wife's husband, to the being who is somehow related to the beautiful woman carrying our grandchild. The term manservant comes to mind at this stage of my life, but it was a wonderful time of late night lime sherbert runs and visits to the manliest of stores - Babies R Us.

At one time, a scant few months ago, I thought it couldn't get any worse than craft stores, but like I said before- I didn't know anything. An entire store - an Astrodome full of baby stuff. This place had 50 different kinds of bottle warmers, teething rings, birthing blankets, breast pumps, diapers, wipes, strollers, formula with iron, formula with DHA, formula with ARA. Talk about a stranger in a strange land. I didn't know anything about this stuff. None of my buddies knew anything about this stuff. The guys on ESPN Sportscenter never talked about what kind of baby formula a future Hall of Famer needed. Needless to say I had to get educated. This meant more of my brain devoted to Diaper Genies and less of it devoted to manly pursuits. And then came birthing classes...

I Fold
The last remnants of my manhood stood like a stone wall - inviolate. Tuesday night poker pre-dated my marriage. It was the one night of the week that all my pent up testosterone flowed like a river at flood stage. I could talk like a man. Chew like a man. Spit like a man.

When my wife and I signed up for Lamaze classes, the only available night was, of course, on Tuesdays. Ultimately the decision was a no-brainer. I remember my last poker night very well - I won seven bucks.

If ever a man needs a lesson on just how unimportant he is, Lamaze is that. First they kept the room at about 50 degrees. Pregnant women, I was told, get hot very easily. So while all the women were sitting there in their comfortable, oversized t-shirts, the guys were shivering in parkas.

I was the coach. This sounds manly enough. With visions of Lombardi in my head, my job turned out to basically be moral support. I wasn't calling the plays or demanding time outs but I was definitley on the sidelines. I was there to be there. Still I found myself enjoying being a part of the process.

We Are Not Alone
My wife gave birth to a beautiful, healthy boy. The doctor said he was perfect, and he was. He truly was. And when I looked at him, the scalding hot showers, the frilly stuff all over the house, my junk moldering in bins, poker night, all of it just melted away, and all I saw was my son and my beautiful wife.

It was in that moment, holding my son for the very first, that my definitions of manhood changed. I had gone from being a man to being a husband to being a father. And I knew, for the very first time, what being a man truly means. And oddly enough, I have my wife to thank for that.