Matt Brand, a father of two teenage daughters, is trying to navigate the ups and downs of parenting. His perspective on the first 15 years of that journey is filled with stories that are fun, serious, thoughtful, and maddening. From figuring out bedtime routines, mastering potty training, and navigating the first day of kindergarten to discussing death, sex, sibling rivalries, and everything in between, Nature & Nurture: A Journey Through the Fog of Parenting is an honest, hilarious, and touching ride for parents of all ages.
According to Matt's mom: "I laughed. I cried. I peed in my pants a little ... but that might be unrelated and irrelevant."
Matt Brand, a father of two teenage daughters, is trying to navigate the ups and downs of parenting. His perspective on the first 15 years of that journey is filled with stories that are fun, serious, thoughtful, and maddening. From figuring out bedtime routines, mastering potty training, and navigating the first day of kindergarten to discussing death, sex, sibling rivalries, and everything in between, Nature & Nurture: A Journey Through the Fog of Parenting is an honest, hilarious, and touching ride for parents of all ages.
According to Matt's mom: "I laughed. I cried. I peed in my pants a little ... but that might be unrelated and irrelevant."
Being a father is not how I imagined it.
When my wife, Danyael, was pregnant with our first daughter, I—being the type of person who definitely likes to learn as much about as many things as possible and who does not like surprises—did a lot of reading and research about babies and parenthood in general.
I searched for books or articles about anything related to being a parent, from learning about what a woman goes through during pregnancy, to how the fetus develops from week to week, to understanding what types of foods are good to eat and what kinds of behaviors I should expect to witness, as well as information about baby strollers currently in trend, popular names from the past decade, how hospitals work, and what to expect during my wife’s labor. If there was something to learn about anything related to this adventure, I was interested.
The problem I encountered was that I had a very difficult time finding anything written from or for the perspective of a dad. So, while I could read a book about how you’ll be feeling in the first trimester or an article about what cream to use to help prevent stretch marks, there wasn’t much about you’re going to be a dad, here’s what you need to know. In many cases, what I read was actually quite disconcerting. Many articles had a tone that felt a bit anti-me. For instance, there was one article I read that I thought was about baby tantrums but was actually about how the author wanted to blame her husband for everything. It had lines like, “I was in a store shopping with my baby, and she was having a full meltdown. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. After confirming that she had a clean and dry diaper, wasn’t hungry, and didn’t need to burp, I called my husband, only to find out that he had introduced a new food without telling me. It was all his fault.”
I’m exaggerating a bit, but most of what I read made me feel that way (perhaps I was being too sensitive), and I frankly don’t blame them. People write from their own perspective, and I think it’s simply that there were very few—if any—blogs or books by dads that are about dads and for dads. Please don’t jump down my throat. There is plenty of airspace and there are plenty of words for everyone. I was just trying to be as prepared as possible so I could do the best job as a husband and parent.
Ultimately, this was the reason why I decided to start writing a parenting blog of my own. I wrote my first post for that blog in 2010. I had a few goals when I started it:
♦ I wanted a journal for myself so I could look back someday and remember all the big moments.
♦ I thought that maybe, just maybe, if there are other dads out there who went through a similar research plan only to find that they couldn’t find anything relatable, well, maybe this could be that. I even thought that if other dads wanted to write their own posts, that would be even better.
♦ Maybe someday, I thought, I could build some sort of parent community where people wrote about their own adventures.
I made a few rules for myself:
1. The first rule was that I would use my own voice. For people who know me, I suspect you can hear me in the words. For people who don’t, maybe it’s a little informal or unusual to read things that are designed to be more conversational. I hope you enjoy what you’re about to read in the coming chapters.
2. The second rule was to be authentic. I wanted to be present in all the moments of parenthood and then reflect on what that was like for me. I didn’t ever want to fabricate stories, therefore, everything I would write, glamorous or otherwise, would be what actually happened (well, mostly—see the fourth rule).
3. The third rule was that I wouldn’t create any sort of schedule for writing. A lot of people who write for a living make it a point, like working out, to have a rigid schedule. I think that would be great for me too, and while I love a good schedule, this rule contributes to the reason that the second rule works. I would write when an idea struck me. Basically, if I had an emotional response or felt strongly about some event that I just witnessed or experienced as a parent, that would be the reason to write. There were some years when I wrote three posts the whole year and other years when I wrote 10.
4. The fourth rule was to protect my children. This is a broader rule. I always tried to be careful to write about things that would not violate their privacy. I didn’t want to write about anything that they might look back on someday and feel truly embarrassed. I certainly wouldn’t want them to be angry with me for sharing something that they thought violated their trust. Certainly, they wouldn’t mind if, in 2040, they look back and read an old post about how they liked to read or how potty training went for them.
5. This last rule is ultimately what brought me to this book - never write about their thoughts on relationships and partners, nor about their thoughts on alcohol or drugs. I have been writing about my daughters on the blog for 13 years. As they’ve gotten older (15 and 16 at the time I’m writing this), the things I could share that are the parallels to when they were, say, 4 and 5 years old, are almost all things that would violate the fourth rule. I’ve never felt comfortable writing about whatever their thoughts are on relationships and partners, so I wouldn’t do that. What about when they get to the stage where they might dabble in drinking alcohol or trying marijuana in any of its forms? I wouldn’t write about that either. While I could ask their permission each time, it started to feel tedious and less authentic or organic.
I recently had a realization that the blog, in the form that it took over the previous 13 years, had to end. There’s just not a lot that I could write about them anymore that would feel safe. Once I had that realization, I thought about how to wrap it up. I’ve always wanted to write a book and have been throwing ideas around for the past 10 years. How do I end the blog? I should write a book that is a highlight reel of my experience as a parent so far. I should write a book that not only has revised content from the blog over the years, but also new thoughts and feelings on all of those topics.
So that’s what I did. I thought about different kinds of ideas for how to string this all together in a way that maintains the mission and the rules. I wanted to put together something that would be fun to read, while also being thoughtful, sad in spots, and even a little ridiculous from time to time.
Oh, one more rule I forgot: I told myself I wanted to be very mindful to not be prescriptive. I am not a doctor or a child psychologist. I’m just a person who, when I started, was a new parent trying to figure it out like so many other people. I set out to consciously write about my own experiences, and if people found that relatable or funny or useful, that’s great. And, what if they didn’t? There are plenty of other places on the internet to spend their time.
My story is not wild and crazy. “Nature & Nurture: A Journey Through the Fog of Parenting” is a collection of my thoughts and experiences from being a parent. There are stories that range from the time my daughters were born all the way through to where they are now—in high school. There are even a few original poems I’ve written and some stories about me because I figured a little background about who I am might add some context.
I am by no means an expert on parenting. If you are a parent, I’m sure you have your own experiences as well. It is worth noting that my wife and I have always worked together in our effort to make sure we were giving consistent messages to our daughters. While we have not always agreed on how to approach this specific issue or that particular conversation, we always support each other. You might agree with some of the ways we’ve approached our parenting adventures and you might disagree. I’m okay with that. I’m not preaching that you should or shouldn’t do anything the way we’ve done it or the way we’ll continue to do it. My goal isn’t to convert you to or to espouse my philosophy on parenting. It’s simply my set of experiences and my opinions, and maybe some of it will be relatable. Maybe some of it will make you laugh. Maybe some of it will make you cry. Maybe some of it will make you think I’m an idiot. I’m okay with all of that.
As a child, I was into a lot of what would be considered nerdy things. I loved computers, gadgets, Transformers, and Star Wars. I’ve also always been fascinated by how things worked. My mother would tell you a story about how when I was a toddler, someone gave me a kid-sized tool belt with a few tools, including a screwdriver. One day I decided that I wanted to take the railings off the steps in our split-level house just because it seemed like a fun thing to do (don’t worry: I put them back on the steps). Figuring things out has always been fun and challenging for me. Parenting is no different. I am a confident person, but not so confident as to believe that I know all the answers in any one area.
I am always trying to learn and always trying to improve as a husband and as a parent. As nerdy as I am, I’ve also regularly had urges to express myself creatively. While writing software professionally allows for a certain type of creativity, writing in this way has also been fun for me and has scratched a different kind of itch.
Where the nerd who is actually more of an introvert takes over is when I start to feel anxious about the idea of putting something I worked on out into the world for people whom I don’t know and wondering why anyone would care or if anyone would even read it. I learned fairly early on in the blog’s life that it didn’t really matter to me who was looking at it; that it was simply an exercise that made me feel good, therefore, it was worth doing. If other people got anything out of it, that was a bonus. As a matter of fact, if you remember the original intent of the blog (to perhaps have a place for dads like me to write about their experiences and in some way to give a perspective that might be useful for other dads), it turned out that my audience was mostly made up of people who weren’t dads. Many of the people I’ve heard from over the years who have found useful or enjoyed what I’ve written on the blog have been moms or even people who don’t have any kids yet but hope to at some point.
Whomever you are, you’re welcome here. Whatever your opinions and perspectives are on parenting, you’re welcome here. Thank you for getting this far (full-disclosure: you’re not that far yet).
I hope you enjoy “Nature & Nurture.”
—Matt
PS No, I will not have the sex talk with your kids.
PPS I asked Julianna and Chloe for title suggestions. Julianna told me that sometimes, when she needs to write essays for school, she’ll put a filler title in like, “[INSERT TITLE HERE].” Sometimes, she told me, she even forgot to replace it. She then told me that I should just call it “[parenty title here],” but I had to make sure I used the brackets. That was the working title for quite a while because I thought it was cute. I spent quite a bit of time trying to think of a title that was more representative of how this book tells the story about my parenting experience.
Matt Brand had his two daughters, Julianna and Chloe, very quickly after marrying his wife. Not being able to find many father’s perspectives on parenting, he started a blog, which then became a book, on being a father to his two girls. The book takes the reader through pregnancy, babyhood, early childhood, and into the teenage years, with Matt also sharing his dreams for each daughter’s future.
As a parent, I loved the quirky angle to parenting Nature vs. Nurture brought. This is definitely not a mainstream book that shares how to get parenting right. There’s no Hollywood tale of wild hospital drives to give birth (or there is, but only as a juxtaposition to reality). Instead, there are unique moments Matt shared with his daughters, and this is what makes the book so special.
The book takes us into Matt’s life and the decisions he has made—to find happiness at home so that he can work effectively, to have children quickly, to create a blog, to view the world through each daughter’s eyes, to share Skittles in the theater, or to hold back embarrassing comments.
As a reader, I loved how Matt embraced each girl’s personality, creating space for each daughter to be herself, and celebrating the uniqueness of his daughters. Throughout the book, we get to know the personality of each girl and to see how each grows up into her teenage years. There’s the warm and nurturing Julianna and the intelligent and reserved Chloe.
Matt shares a lot about the culture he and his wife create for the girls, his Jewish heritage, and the decisions made together about how he assisted his daughters to live in the outside world.
For both new and established parents, this is a wonderful, quirky, and humorous read that will make you laugh at the unique ways children see the world, the perspectives they bring, and the ways that help us see the world through new eyes. While reading, you will both laugh out loud and be reminded of your children and their cute quirks. Overall, this is a great read.