fake it 'til you make it?

Yaseen has started doing this grating groan to convey maybe 50% of his needs these days. Thirsty? Hungry? Wants to violently tug at my ears? Each demand audibly indistinguishable beyond a short but insistent cry that cuts through all noise, only ceasing when his want is catered for.

A few days earlier he spilled a bottle of hair moisturiser on the floor and called out “daddy” in the sweetest voice, as a pool of pink liquid formed in front of him. At that moment, the puddle could just as easily been any aspirations for annoyance melting away from my heart.

But that was then, and yesterday was yesterday.

I spent large sections of it asleep; in the groggy hangover of it; or in the agitated and drained state preceding it. My body was heavy, my mind fogged, and my goodwill depleted.

Yesterday, the sweetness of Yaseen’s voice was replaced by impatience and unrelenting need for attention, and I considered: how much of that changed perception is coloured by my current state of wellbeing and how in that predicament, I’m called to behave contrary to how I feel.

A couple of months after Yaseen was born I joined a 6-week dad’s group. In one of the sessions, the facilitator declared something along the lines of fatherhood being the longest lasting acting role, and it instinctively irked me.

Revisiting that thought today, I’m reminded of the 1971 conversation between James Baldwin and Nikki Giovanni. Baldwin attempts to describe the several reasons why Black men in America, under the shadow of slavery and in light of poverty slowly lose their ability to express love.

It’s a long exchange and Giovanni, representing the generation after Baldwin, accepts his analysis but contends that Black men must find a way to be present recipients and sources of love for their families, even if they have to fake it like they do for their oppressors.

“…well, it’s no wonder he doesn’t know you’re angry and that the children are afraid. You have to decide who you are going to smile at. Job or no job. Future or no future. Cause all those reasons you give me for your actions don’t make sense if I can’t enjoy you.” - Nikki Giovanni

This is one of the uncomfortable demands of parenthood. Even when deplete of kindness, even for yourself, there’s a reserve somewhere that needs tapping into, to rally against a fatigued, irritable version that the world carves you into, and choosing to express love.

It’s the intentionality in this performative behaviour that felt unnatural and almost self-delusional when hearing it from the dad’s group facilitator. There’s little doubt in my mind that I love my wife or son, or parents or siblings but I also at times feel incapable of expressing it. At times, the only emotion it feels I can truthfully embody is frustration and fatigue.

I have to fake it with my own family?

But what’s the alternative?

To be “authentic” to yourself but insufferable to the people who least deserve that side of you?

I think this is where responsibility for our wellbeing becomes pressing. The individualistic self-improvement for personal gain spiel misses a large portion of the societal picture.

When we aren’t at least approximating the self-love required to close the leakages of toxic smoke that can exude from us all, its those who we apparently love that are on the receiving end of the coldness; the snaps; the lack of attention.

“If they can’t handle me at my worst they don’t deserve me at my best” was a dumb meme.

We wouldn’t levy that argument at our employers or our clients, yet somehow it holds water when referring to our nearest and dearest?

When you get married or have a child, the burden of stemming the leak ultimately sits with you, even with nothing but makeshift materials to work with.

For me, stealing pockets of time before anyone is awake to prime myself for the day helps me show up better.

And if not for a lasting transformation into the compassionate, present and loving individual you’re required to be, to muster enough energy to act.

And who, but your loved ones, are worthy of your finest performance?

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