“Bonding” leave

chase  ·  Wed, Sep 2, 2015

This is my last week of what is sometimes called “bonding” leave. It’s bittersweet because it’s coming to an end, but also because as a father there’s a limited amount of bonding I can do with a newborn. I don’t have milk, so although I have plenty of warmth and humming and bouncing to share, I’m basically as good as the floor when Milo is hungry — which is pretty much constantly for that last day or so. Michelle told us that this would happen when Milo hits growth spurts, so it’s nothing to be concerned about, but it does make me feel like the idea of bonding is, for a father, a bit of a farce at this point. All I can do is disappoint or, at best, in Milo’s brief windows of satedness, provide abstract stimulation (the “After Birth” episode of Radiolab provides some excellent context on how new humans perceive the world).

All the more reason why it’s important to have patience, not just within the span of minutes and hours that I spend calming Milo, but across the weeks and months it will take for her to develop the perceptual acuity and mental focus to appreciate me being a goofball.

(I might take some real bonding leave at that point.)