The Derps Always Beat Me

Been on a multi-year infertility arc, which is admittedly depressing at times (and at other times, like most of life’s problems, you barely think about it at all), and have done IVF twice (2022 and 2023), both of which failed. I don’t, at this moment, see a biological path for me as a dad. I can definitely see some type of life involving kids, but they may be kids of friends and neighbors. And while maybe that wasn’t the way it seemed scripted for me at one point, it’s where you end up. I understand and have mostly processed it, although on some days, it’s harder than others. Honestly, drinking less has been helpful for me in this way, because over-indulging on booze usually brings out the wrong, depressive feelings tied to this stuff.

OK, so with that introduction, allow me a tiny bit of “woe is me” shit for a second. It will not last long.

For years, across two marriages of my own, I have been hearing women talk about “the greatest gift” that their husband gave them, I.e. 1–4 kids. Some of these women truly love their husband, and some seem to spend every waking second complaining about him aside from “the greatest gift.” Many of those couples ended in divorce, and some are now both on a second marriage. In 1–2 cases, you have new kids that are half-siblings with the old kids. People move on. I get it.

The “greatest gift” thing is confusing to me. I am sure part of my confusion is that I would like to attain it, I.e. I would like to provide this supposed “greatest gift” to someone. And, alas, I have not.

As I’ve contemplated these semantics and gender roles over the years, I’ve also come to realize that a lot of men are essentially useless day-over-day. Not all, of course, but I’ve heard from hundreds of women at this point about housework, about being present for the kids, about investing in the woman’s life outside of her “wife/mother” role, etc. I’ve had somewhere between 10 and 12 women tell me they never feel respected by their husband unless they’re currently pregnant.

For years, I wondered if maybe there is some cosmic order to who “gets” or “deserves” to be a biological parent. I struggled with that for a long time, and then I realized like, people kill their own kids, often as infants, so I doubt there is any “cosmic order” to any of this. While some of us are longed for and our parents went through fertility issues and miscarriages, many of us are just happy biological accidents, with a smidge of planning. So I did manage to chuck out the “cosmic order” thinking. I don’t think anyone deserves to be a parent over anyone else, but again, the semantics get confusing, especially because we always contextualize babies as “blessings,” so if you’re not making babies, you feel like … you’re not blessed?

As I’ve had to understood my role in everything and where I’ll likely end up, the only remaining thing that sometimes troubles me is: why do the derpiest-type guys seem like they reproduce at will? I mean like guys who never seem to know what grade their kids are in, guys who hide behind the “family man” narrative, etc. I do not mind the dutiful dad trying his best while potentially living a life of quiet desperation.

I end up minding the derp loser-y guys who get “blessed” or “lucky” in this regard.

I sometimes come to it like this: my dad is 84.8 years old and has cancer. He will potentially die in the next year or two. We live 1,200 miles apart and no, I cannot say we have ever been super close. He was a three-sport athlete in high school and I never really lived up to that, and I sometimes think that broke us from an early age. I don’t want to turn this into a therapy session, but aside from the years where I was drinking 10 beers at lunch (a behavior I likely would have stopped if I had been a father, God willing), I think I would have been an OK dad, maybe even a good “boy dad.”

My thing is, I wanted the chance to do better as the next generation. And I probably will never get it. I look around at some dudes who never even have to think about any of this shit, and still seem to take it for granted, and I ask myself: why them?

And the answer is: No one really knows.

That’s where I am at. Thanks for listening.