You might think you are fully-prepared for bringing your first-born home, but you’re not. You’re really not. No matter how many self-help manuals, teach-yourself-child-rearing websites or well-meaning relatives you have consulted, your state of almost complete unreadiness remains fully intact. Trust me on this one.
For the ill-prepared new parents, though, there are maybe six advicey nuggets that should be particularly clung to in the long sleepless nights, briefly enlivened by the maybe-smiles from your mini-me, that lie ahead.
Firstly, your home is full of sharp, savage edges. No matter how twee, safe and accommodating it looked just nine months ago, it now has scary protuberances everywhere, just waiting for you to slip or to drop your wee one. Best invest in sure-grip soles and cover your apartment’s every pointy bit with bubble-wrap and padded sockery, though it won’t help counter that lingering feel of impending dread all that much.
Secondly, Checking That Folk Are Breathing is now A Thing. While padding up to the cot and checking on the chest movements of your wee one is permissible, best not to let such practices intrude into your work life. In many Hong Kong offices, conspicuous respiration may be deemed a sign of ostentatious ambition and, in several government departments, it is actually seen as a bar to promotion.
Thirdly, beware of discerning patterns. Any indication that your new arrival has fallen into a routine with regard to eating, napping or nappy-filling is purely an illusion, probably brought on by a lack of sleep. In truth, the fruit of your loins is no more regular than KITEC’s post-gig bus service and far less likely to cease any discernible activity after 10pm.
Fourthly, although a cork dropped four streets away will be more than enough to wake your heir apparent once you’ve spent three hours gently rocking and coaxing them to sleep, a detonating gas main immediately below your apartment will not suffice to stir them should you want to impress impromptu visitors or proudly Skype your diapered-darling to overseas well-wishers.
Fifthly, according to Science, your beloved new-born will not form their first congruent thought (“wanna wee”) for some time – around 18 months for a girl and, for boys, shortly before their 17th birthday. In a by-product of Darwinistic opportunism, however, this will not stop your infant charge from assuming a mantle of infinite wisdom pretty much the instant they are de-wombed.
While their cold young / old appraising stare merely belies the fact that they have approximately the same sentience as a hand towel, if will suffice to instil an unmasterable sense of soul-bared exposure in any passing parent. This is, in fact, an evolutionary asset that stops even the most self-centred of progenitors from indulging in any activity – finishing box-sets, watering a hibiscus, eating… – that does not directly benefit the new-born in question.
In fact, one feckless father, found to have half-considered a few liveners with a briefly-in-town old mate down Wan Chai way, was subsequently found quite dead in an SCMP Sunday supplement, with a glowering four-month-old looking on. While it later transpired that the child merely had wind, there was no way that the doomed dad could have known that, at least not for sure.
Text: William Elliott
The full version of this feature appears on Gafencu Magazine’s April 2018 print issue. You can download the free app for digital editions of the magazine.