The First Joys of Parenthood: Time-Warping Lenses

There are too many indescribable feelings around the experience of becoming a parent for the first time. Since the beginning of the year, I often found myself wondering if I could ever capture the magic of these joys on paper. I know that I will undoubtedly fall short.

But that doesn’t mean I won’t occasionally try.

This essay is one of those attempts. It’s about a particular gift from early parenthood: time-warping lenses.

Seeing the world through my child, in the past

When I became a father, it changed the geometry of time for me. I somehow experienced linear time in a non-linear way. I refer to this experience as putting on time-warping lenses, through which you can suddenly feel much more of the different chapters of life. Let me explain:

First, it starts with my daughter entering the world and experiencing everything, literally everything, for the first time. The way she stares at the trees in our backyard in the evenings, the way she reacts to the tartness of raspberries, the way she grabs furiously on a guitar string to hear it vibrate. Every experience brings a new sensation that sparks something new in her.

When you watch your child experience life in this way, you get to experience the beginning again. My daughter reminds me that I once entered the world in the same way: full of wonder, curiosity, possibility. I see myself in her, I see the beginning of my own life and I get transported backward in time.

Of course, I don’t remember what my life was really like as an 8 month old. But when I watch her, I can imagine a chapter of my childhood with a certain texture that had always been inaccessible to me.

Seeing the world through my parents, in the future

Second, becoming a parent made me see my own parents in a way that I never had before. The way they excitedly answer every FaceTime call to catch a glimpse of my daughter’s face, the way they celebrate every little milestone of hers as if she were winning Olympic gold medals, the way they support and encourage my wife and me to keep showing up and trying our best as parents. Each interaction is pure and carries with it a feeling that they are perhaps revisiting a chapter of their own lives they still hold dear.

When you watch your parents experience grandparenthood in this way, you get to experience the future before it arrives. Watching them become grandparents has given me a glimpse of who they were when they first became parents — they were just kids, like me and my wife. But it has also given me a glimpse of who I might become one day. I see myself in them, and I get transported forward in time.

For the first time, I can see my parents in both directions. I can imagine them in their past lives, figuring things out the best they could and loving me in ways that I was too young to understand. I see a side of them I couldn’t see before. And in who they are today, I can catch a glimpse of a person I might become.

Seeing the world for myself, in the present

Lastly, time-warping lenses change the way I experience the life that is right in front of me. I’m only 8 months into parenthood, but I’m blown away by how many versions of my daughter have come and gone.

The tiny newborn who once fit in a single arm’s length, the unintentional first smiles that have turned into full-hearted giggles, the hours of tummy time now converted into energetic kicks in the swimming pool. I blinked and a lifetime passed, and I’ll blink a few more times and so too will a few more pass.

Parenthood is giving me an awareness of the finiteness of time, without actually requiring loss to teach it to me. As my daughter continues to grow, learn, and become herself every day — a new version of her arrives and replaces one that I’ll never get back.

I can recognize to some extent, the same is true for all of us. My wife and I will never again be first-time parents, figuring out this particular version of our daughter. My parents will never again be exactly where they are today, watching me become a father while they become grandparents. We’re all moving through these chapters together, even if they feel ordinary from the inside.

Maybe that is the real gift of time-warping lenses. The joy of becoming a parent for the first time is experiencing life all over again. It is discovering a dimension of moving through time, while staying present, that had never revealed itself to you. And it is being reminded that gratitude for the moment you are in — the beautiful ones, the difficult ones, and all the ordinary ones in between — is the only way.

The lenses don’t let me slow down time, or speed it up. They simply remind me to pay attention to the life that is happening right now.