Not quite a Rory Rant...
Most of our readers certainly don’t need to hear this from me, but for the 13% of you under the age twenty-six, hopefully this will connect.
I just spent seven days living in paradise with my Fijian family. The couple actually returned to the islands the same day as me, as they’d recently traveled back to the US to deliver and care for their firstborn. Eleven weeks later they brought their baby home to beautiful Viti Levu.
When reading this it’s good to keep in mind that I’m an only child (draw any assumptions you’d like from that) and have never co-existed with an infant, so this experience was all new to me. But the way the baby affected my friends’ daily routine was incredible.
Last year our days in Fiji were spent like this: we’d all go out on the boat, pre-dad would swim and shoot water photos while pre-mom would film from the boat. After they’d successfully nailed a few shots of the paying customers, the couple would grab their boards and surf alongside me. An enviable lifestyle indeed.
Now it’s more this: Wake up somewhere between 2-4 AM to feed the baby, go back to sleep for a couple hours, wake up at six to start the day, take turns handling the baby while the other uses the bathroom, makes breakfast, etc., decide which one of them will go on the boat today — if the dad, sweet, if the mom, pump enough milk for a five-hour absence – shoot photos of paying customers for twice as long, because you’ve lost your partner and therefore need to pick up the slack, plus you’ve gotta make extra money now to support the baby, jump in for a quick surf before we head back to the mainland, rush home because you feel guilty you were gone for so long, take the baby off your partner’s hands despite the fact you’re tired and sunburnt from being out on the boat all day, then settle in for the afternoon/evening and hit the sack at nine o’clock sharp.
Stressful!
My point is that having a baby changes everything. That’s no novel concept, but it’s hard to truly appreciate it until you’ve coexisted with a newborn and seen all the little things done throughout the day to maintain the kid’s health and happiness.
The simplest tasks are made difficult, the most basic pleasures induce painful amounts of guilt, and surfing — especially for people with nine-to-fives — is almost entirely out of the equation. Being a parent truly is a full-time job, and through this trip I’ve gained newfound respect for any child-rearing couple. I don’t know how single parents even survive, to be honest.
I wouldn’t say this experience has deterred me from wanting to reproduce; it just set my timeline back three-to-fifteen years. If I’m gonna surf and travel and experience this world in any sort of reckless fashion, it’s now or never. Once you have a kid, the world becomes a whole lot smaller and infinitely more dangerous.
Maybe Chas or Derek or some of our child-bearing readers will disagree, but this is my youthful, secondhand understanding of the child/surfer conundrum.
Why do BeachGrit persist with publishing this dribblers work? He’s akin to the clueless 17 year old at a dinner party full of adults, after guzzling too many wines, slurring his unsolicited “wisdom” while everyone around the table humours him because we all thought at one point we would never have kids, would never get a mortgage and would make a living out of travelling.
Well at least you’re trying to think ahead. We just fucking dived in. In hindsight I think, you might as well. because once it’s done it’s never over. NEVER. You’re not a parent then you are until you die.
no girls wanna fuck you so, you wont have a problem
Got 3 – 10 yr old daughter 8 yr old twin boys. Daughter not interested, boys ridden foamies stood up so think they can surf – not into it
More time for me!!! At school so surf a shitload really
Still practicing making babies very often. But we have gone and got 10 week old puppy haven’t we?????? FUCK its back to newborns!!!
Wait until your 30s. Wanting to surf at a high level with my kids has kept me motivated for the last 10 years. If you wait until you are somewhat financially solid, having kids is no big deal. At first I had to surf more arvos when wife got home to watch kids. But since kids started school, I surf as much or more than ever. (Note: I work from home and can work whenever, which helps.)
I just had my first kid 2 months ago. Guess how long it’s been since I surfed?
Had kids later in life. As my surfing declines, it’s the small things. Like when one of the little fuckers tried paddling in to a wave I was on and got fire hosed in the face. Worth the price of admission.
Watched my son take a late drop on a two footer and get a head splash barrel last week. Doesn’t get any better than that.
Get me on a good day and I’d say that kids are the best thing ever and they round out and ground what would have been an empty yet pleasant existence spent on the hedonic treadmill. Get me on a bad day, I’ll tell you choosing to procreate will severely limit your surfing options and the only new skill you’ll develop is learning to surf while enveloped in a haze of exhaustion while questioning why you chose to deliberately cruel what had been such a fun breezy existence.
43, both kids 13&10 texting me at work to finish early and take them surfing… that’s pretty epic. I also have a new found love of tiny waves I’d normally turn my nose up at… (and just quietly, a love affair with a 6’6″ learner soft-top)
One side benefit of kids is developing the involuntary reflexive skill of reciting Dr Suess novels verbatim at any given moment of the day or night, one trigger word is enough
If you look deep enough, you can still see today,
Where the Lorax once stood, just as long as he could
Before somebody lifted the Lorax away.
But what was the Lorax, and why was he there?
And why was he lifted and taken somewhere?
From the far edge of town where the grickle grass grows
The old Onceler still lives there, ask him he knows.
You have brains in your head and feet in your shoes and you can steer yourself in whatever direction you choose.You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And you are the one who’ll decide where to go…
My dad said out of all the life’s to choose from, one with a family is probs the best. That being said , my water time ( sessions and length of session, Think dog years, one hour with kids is equal to 3, has been cut in half ) but, like the great Wiggs said , there cute, I guess ,,,, THANKS DAD!!!!!
Ps. Would LOVE hear what Dez and Chas think about this…..
I waited till I was old. There’s pros and cons. I haven’t screwed em up by being in my dumb-fuck twenties or thirties. But it’s physically very hard. By the time they’re ready to surf I’ll be well into my 60’s, which will be rad in its own way. But the love, ah the love.
If u don’t gon have kids then u you young and you just wanna surf all day then who gonna pay for yo pension when u 2 old to surf?
I loved practising making babies for a long time. Took a lot of courage to fill a chicks guts with my white worms but eventually the pressure gets the better of you. Figured if I made my chick a little friend to hang out with she wouldn’t be so pissed off at me for fucking off all day surfing. Now my chick can’t wake up at 2am to get her tits sucked by an infant because she’s too tired from watching daytime soapies. I don’t deserve 3 hours sleep cos all I got to do is go work 15 hours a day in a fluorescent light cunt factory and prob catch fucken swine flu on the train with all these dirty bogan cunts. Anyway kids are sweet. Best thing you’ll ever do.
this was your best comment in the past week, besides the bruce irons drug aware pro one. the rest are shit
You did nail it but there is more. As I experience an age related decline in my surfing ability it is incredible to share time in the water with my now 17 year old and 10 year old sons. The younger is a beginner and his stoke is infectious and the older one is pretty fucking hardcore and steps up and handles waves that I would no longer consider surfing. It has been very gratifying to be a part of their lives and raise them into surfing. I feel that they have been given a gift that relatively few will get to experience.