Things Every Father Should Know or Think About
In this episode of the Learn With Less podcast, Ayelet chats with Anton Marinovich, her very own partner in parenting.
We cover:
- Anton’s own challenges as a new dad
- The journey into his self-identity as a father
- His own perspective on the first few years of fatherhood (and his concept of “the tunnel”)
- How he started noticing his baby’s behavior
- What led to him understanding his babies
Join us for this special episode by listening on your favorite podcast player or reading the transcript below.
Ayelet: Welcome to episode 77 of the Learn With Less podcast. It’s nearly Father’s Day, and I wanted to take a moment to recognize my parenting partner. I also thought it might be a nice way for you guys to get a sense of the other half of my team in real life… because, as you know, when I’m not creating podcast episodes and working, I’m momming two young children.
This episode is dedicated to celebrate the role of your co-parent or co-caregiver. Because whether you are parenting with or without a partner, whether you are a dad, have a dad (or have three), or whether your children have no dads… whether you lost your dad, have a complicated relationship with your dad, or have the best dad in the world, none of us is raising children in isolation. So I hope you’ll take this opportunity, as I have, to thank the person or people who are helping you get through the day.
Today, I’m speaking with my husband, Anton Marinovich. I’d love to introduce him to you, and let him tell you his story. He’ll share a few of his own words of wisdom, things he’s learned along the way, his own challenges, and the way he has learned to understand his young children.
Ayelet: Hi Husband.
Anton: Hi, Wife.
Ayelet: So I’m sitting here with my husband, Anton Marinovich, and usually on the Learn With Less podcast, we start by giving a little bit of background information about who my guest is and how they came into doing what they’re doing, or being who they are, in all their fabulousness.
So, because this is a feature on fathers and partners, I’d love to just sort of chat with you today about how that all came to be, and your experience as a father thus far in our parenting journey together. So, will you tell the listeners a little bit about, you know, who you are and what you came into fatherhood with. What were your sort of initial… Right before everything went down, what were some of the things that you were excited about and what were the, if you can recall, the hopes and dreams that you had coming into fatherhood.
Anton: Okay. That’s quite a bit. Let’s start from the top a little bit about myself. So, I’m your husband and my, I guess professional career, has been in sales, primarily sales management and leadership roles in tech companies. I think if I was to start with, like, fatherhood, I would say that probably the, maybe it’s the first time or your first child was pretty nerve wracking.
I mean we had a lot going on in a lot of big changes. We had just gotten married and then we moved and I switched jobs, and all of those things. And then here was like that you’re going to become a dad and all that was kind of converging all at once.
Ayelet: Right. I mean we, we moved not only like to the next town over, we moved across the pond from California to the UK. Right.
Anton: Right. And switching jobs and so all that dramatic change. And so I think probably initially I think I was very fearful of just what it all meant. You know, there was a little bit too much change for me to handle at once. But once you get through that, then I think it started to get more and more real about the fact that I was going to become a dad.
So instead of having that level of insecurity of ‘am I going to be a good father or not?’ I think it became more of a point of embracing the fact that I was moving onto the next phase of my life, if you will. You know, it’s like it’s just everything kind of happens in a step. And I saw that as a, as a step.
And I would say that like my hopes and dreams, I don’t know. I think when you were pregnant and when we were about to have our first son, I don’t think it was so much, you know, after you get over that kind of initial fear then it was more, and I wasn’t really thinking about like, ‘Oh, what kind of dad am I going to be?’ Or like, ‘oh this is going to play sports and stuff.’
I think it turned out to be more of like, you know, I want to make sure that the, you know, hopefully the pregnancy goes smooth and I hope I can support you through the birthing process as well as possible. And I hope we have a healthy baby and I hope, you know, we’re able to adapt to the changes that you know, having a baby will bring. So maybe a bit more rational in that thought process. So…
Ayelet: I don’t think you’re alone in that.
Anton: Yeah, I probably had some dreams and hopes in it, but I think with just everything going on, it was a bit more of like, no, let’s focus on the tangibles and the things that I can deal with right now. And not try to get lost in the future.
Ayelet: Well, and that’s, I mean those in fact are actually quite intangible. Those are the things that you feel like you’d like to have control over, which of course you don’t. All right, so baby comes, we get back home. My mom was there with us. Staying with us for the first few weeks. What were some of those initial feelings of… What you were experiencing? What was happening as far as fatherhood?
Because I think, you know, there’s a lot about like, okay, well the transition into motherhood, the… Things change, of course a lot for the mom. Obviously, you know, physically there’s all kinds of things to adapt to, whether or not you choose or can, or are having an easy or hard time with breastfeeding and all of the sleep and all of that stuff. Like what were some of those things for you that changed or you were grappling with?
Anton: I think it was that, I think I’m a bit routine-driven, right? And so that was a whole dramatic change to the routine. And it’s like how do you compensate for that while you’re still, you know, again, being very rational, hey, I’m building out a business and I’m hiring people and managing them and changing the way that they do things. And you know, Oh God.
Also my whole home life is different. And like, oh wait a sec, we just can’t go out on Friday nights anymore. And you know, I’ll get in a beer with the guys and Saturday night. Like that’s probably not a good idea, seeing that I’m probably gonna wake up like five times during the night with you or whatever it’s going to be. So those little things were an interesting change that you just had to cope with. But at the same time, it was also like, okay, you know, my family needs me.
So maybe it’s more of, you know, something nestled into our DNA or just that deep kind of, you know, I want to support and provide kind of mentality. So I was like, okay, you know what, those things aren’t so important anymore. It’s about being on-call and just trying to support you and the baby through that process because I can’t really give anything more than just support because you know, you really had gone to, you know, that whole dramatic change.
Here’s this whole new life that’s like, where the hell am I? And so that’s… I felt like probably the best role that I could do is just being that support mechanism, both physically and mentally. I think I did an okay job though.
Ayelet: I think you did a great job. You’ve had many friends since become first-time dads. Have any of them asked for like advice or your thoughts or what should I be aware of or something like that?
Anton: Yeah, I think most of the time it’s more of like, what do I have to be aware of? Like going on with my wife. Like how do I support my wife? Or what do I need to know? Like, does the baby really like get up that many times or… You know, what do you do in the baby’s crying?
So I think for, at least from my network of friends who have become fathers, no one’s really said, like, what does it feel to be a dad? It’s more very tactical. Everything’s like tactical, tactical questions. No, like, philosophical things. It’s just how much longer do I need to, you know… When do you start really seeing the baby sleep through the night, right. And this kind of stuff.
Ayelet: So what is the, I mean, knowing what you know now and having been through it with two very different tiny humans, what kinds of things do you like to say to new parents to your buddies?
Anton: Well, I think it’s, I think it’s the concept of the tunnel or I’ve also heard the term of the baby fog.
Ayelet: Yeah. So will you explain that to our listeners? Because I’ve mentioned that you’ve said…
Anton: I don’t know if I necessarily coined the term, if I heard it from someone, but that feeling of, you know, you have the baby and you know, and as, as the partner who didn’t give birth, you know, I’m back at work, so you’re going through your routine, but then at home you’re kind of dealing with this whole new dynamic.
And so life starts feeling like it’s passing you by so fast because you’re just completely exhausted and you’re basically, you know, you have your work, but then you have your home work if you will. And so it just feels like you’re really in this tunnel and you’re just kind of running down this tunnel and you can see the light at the end of the tunnel, but you know, you just can’t grab it.
You keep on, you can’t grab it, you keep on running towards it. And then finally, you know, maybe it’s this milestone that the baby gets, you know, six hours of straight sleep or it just, something kind of happens in that dynamic or the baby passes a certain, again, milestone that all of a sudden it’s like, oh my God, wow, I’m out of the tunnel.
Like how long has it been like, Oh God, three months or four months? Like, oh Geez, this is unreal. Well, where’s life gone? Like what? What do you mean? Like, Oh, you know, it’s just life passes you by so fast because you literally have tunnel vision. And so that’s the concept of living in the tunnel or being in the tunnel. Yes.
Ayelet: Just to be clear, neither of our two children and slept through the night. No. By three or four months.
Anton: No, I shouldn’t say by sleeping through the night. But I mean like, you know, you get that stretch. Yeah. Or maybe it’s something that your body adapts to it, but there’s just like this kind of change that happens. Uh, and maybe it’s just, you know, just both partners get a… And I don’t know exactly, I can’t say the exact point, but there is this just stays where all of a sudden you see color again.
Ayelet: Yeah. It’s like going black and white to color. Yeah. Yeah. I like that.
Anton: I think with both of ours there’s about three or four months. No, just the saying that being in the tunnel.
Ayelet: I’ve heard you describe it as the first year.
Anton: Yeah. Yes. But there’s this, the initial first three or four months though is where it’s really crazy. Like that’s where you really deep maybe like five, like five like you know, stories deep underground kind of tunnel.
Ayelet: Inception, five levels in. Yeah. Right. Amazing. Yeah. Okay, cool. All right. So you get out of the little tunnel early, maybe you get out of the deepest, darkest depths of the tunnel and then your baby maybe is like starting to be more interactive. And so obviously with my work, like, it’s all about that interaction and the focus of, of what you can do with your baby and what you are already doing. And, and how you can maximize that time with the time that you’re already spending.
So for me, that was the piece of early parenthood that came very naturally to me. What were some of the… what was that like for you as just as far as interacting with your tiny baby? Was it something that you ever struggled with or questioned whether you were, you know, doing the right things or enough things or had the right tools or anything like that? Like what, what was I guess the biggest challenge when it came to connecting with our little ones when they were teeny tiny? And what were those sort of struggles for you? Do you remember?
Anton: I mean, I think you have to jog my memory a little bit. You know, it wasn’t all that long ago, but it feels like it was like so long ago. I would say that I, I mean again, going back to like that being the support mechanism, I feel like I wish it was around maybe around nine months probably with both that, you know, I was able to engage with them. Of course, I love them. And I’m going to hold them and I’m going to do, you know, everything I can. But then there was this change where you can actually engage with him a bit further. Where your reactions are getting like in, I mean you’re always getting some kind of reactions, but you read it better.
And maybe it’s also, you know, the fact of, you know, they’re getting older or getting a little stronger and you’re not so worried about something happening to them. You know, you’ve been, grown accustomed to the routine to having a baby that it kind of changes then from, you know, Oh, I’m going to be the supporter-provider to like, Oh wow, I’m a father, this is my child. And you kind of feel those initial points of, of relationship building where you’re actually building relationship and it’s becoming or feels like anyways, it’s more of a two way street and just a one way street of you do, you know, come on, come on please, please look at me. You, oh, I think he’s finally, you smiled, oh yeah, yeah yeah! Oh no, I think he farted, oh. That’s why he smiled.
Ayelet: There’s a big gap in that timeline between like say six weeks and nine months.
Anton: Yeah, yeah, totally, totally.
Ayelet: So, do you feel like within that gap that that was a difficult time, a more difficult time or a more challenging time as far as…
Anton: Well, I dunno, you know, it may, say, maybe circumstances would have been different had we like, you know, we had both children after two major like kind of career and like Trans-Atlantic moves. So there was already, like, we moved with our first son, you know, we okay, you know, what will it’s not change countries and switch jobs when we have the second one. And then we had the second one, we did the same thing again.
So there was a lot of stuff going around that for your own personal sake, it takes a couple months to then feel settled again. So maybe if those circumstances were a little bit different, I’d feel a little bit more grounded, but you know, there was just a lot of chaos going on at once and we had a lot to deal with. But in hindsight I still, you know, I don’t think I would’ve changed either cause I think it made us stronger as a couple and oh, sorry. You know, how does understand our children even more so too.
Ayelet: Well, so what, what were some of those things as far as starting to understand your babies?
Anton: Yeah, I think it’s the start getting clued into the power of noticing behavior. I think that’s one thing. I mean, you know, when you’re around people and you get older, I mean I think you’ve spent a lot of time focusing on what people say and what they do, but not really the behavior behind it or what’s driving it, and with the child, they’re so, or a baby anyways. It’s so simple, right? It’s so pure. Everything is pure about it.
Ayelet: Sure. And it’s not verbal yet, either. So what were some of the things that you can remember noticing that taught you about your son’s behavior or your son’s preferences or needs or desires or even what, what he was interested in?
Anton: Well, you learned that there’s a lot of different tools around you to, to help your child. I think that the things I started noticing is how he notices the world around him. And that is like for instance, where we were living when our first son was born. You know, we weren’t too far from an airport and you know, an airplane coming not only is something visual that you could see but also makes a sound. And I forget at what stage or how old he was when he started realizing or understanding, you know, what that meant in…
Ayelet: Connecting the thing in the sky, yeah.
Anton: To the sound. Yeah. And then do you remember how we used to put him in his rocker and he could look out the window and then you’d see them all flying over and you know, be content with that. That was a very interesting thing. And then also came with cars, right?
So we’re living in a city and yeah, I think that’s the next thing about it, right? You’re living in a city, you know? Yes. We have like regional parks around us, but it’s not like we had a nice luscious backyard or anything else. We were living in a building that was like kind of, you know, an apartment complex and you know, what are the things around him? Well, it’s glass, it’s doors, it’s concrete, it’s cars, it’s people walking, it’s buses, it’s airplanes, it’s subways and…
Ayelet: It’s the hub-bub.
Anton: Yeah. And you know, and you could see then as he got older, that was where the initial biggest points of interest that he had and some of his earlier words for those things.
Ayelet: Yeah. He was super interested in vehicles of all kinds. Yeah.
Anton: Right, right. I mean, I remember I used to sit him at the corner at the top of Radipole Road and we’d just sit there and watch, you know, the buses and the taxis come by. I think he was what maybe about…
Ayelet: About a year old.
Anton: Yeah, a little bit older. I think about 15, 16 months. I mean, he would just do that and he’d be so content with that for a while.
Ayelet: And every time he’d see one, like a van, he’d go, ” VAN, VAN!”
Anton: Yeah, the Mini Cooper, you know, out of the blue was like one of the like…
Ayelet: The mini pooper.
Anton: Yeah. Oh yes. But I guess, yeah, you’re a combination of influence of, of the environment around him.
Ayelet: Yeah. And what, and his, his own development, right.
Anton: His own interests.
Ayelet: Yeah. Had we been on a farm, it would’ve been a much different thing, or a village or even in Suburbia, you know, it would’ve been much different.
Anton: Yeah, that’s true.
Ayelet: Or which of course then would’ve been a totally different set of vocabulary. Or maybe it would have been animals. Right. Who knows. Yeah. But yeah, yeah, exactly. That influence of the environment and his own interests. But it’s also you reading what his interests were, right?
Anton: Yeah. And picking up on that. Yes. And being able to…
Ayelet: And reinforcing.
Anton: Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a fun thing. And then Number Two doesn’t seem to be as like interested in cars. You know, here we are living in the suburbs now and he isn’t as interested in cars…
Ayelet: He’s into cars, but…
Anton: But you know, not like, you driving down the street where the, our first child would literally call out like the, the make of that car, he started knowing like an Audi to a Ford.
Ayelet: Right, right, right.
Anton: A Honda.
Ayelet: A little bit crazy. Yeah. What do you feel like were some of our second’s early interests and how did you determine what those were?
Anton: Uh, his, his initial: balls. I think a lot of that was, was also driven that our first son started getting really into soccer, or at least I had an interest about it. A very, you know, he’s still quite young but like bombs at a very young age of, of wanting to kick around a soccer ball.
Ayelet: Which of course is like, the two of us are like some of the lease athletic people you might find.
Anton: Yeah. I mean, I’m interested in sports. But yes. But I’m not very athletic, but yeah. And I think, you know, initially for, for our second child, you know how much, I mean he’s still does, you know, there’s, you can put a lot of different toys in front of him, but he will always kind of gravitate towards a ball. It’s his first or second choice. And, and I think that…
Ayelet: And he points out basketball hoops all the time. He’s almost two and a half now.
Anton: Yeah. Yeah. And we just reinforced that a lot because obviously it’s very easy to get a ball or find something that’s circular.
Ayelet: Right! Ooh, talk more about that. I love that.
Anton: So you would find, you know, rocks, circular rocks, balls that may go to other type of toys and so forth. Yeah.
Ayelet: The dryer ball is one that comes to mind.
Anton: Yeah, I forgot that one. Yeah, that one too.
Ayelet: Yeah. We already have so many of them. Yeah, I’d love that you said like anything round. I mean we’ve even like crumpled up newspaper and thrown it into something round like a bowl.
Anton: Or bottle caps, bottle caps, he loves, and that was a circular thing.
Ayelet: Yeah, it can roll, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And then that also, it’s interesting because that like interest in a ball or something that’s round and that rolls is actually something that he seems to be interested in shapes naturally, quite early as well. Sure. Yeah. And he would say circle and, and then we would then reinforce that with other shapes that we saw in the environment or found in the environment.
Anton: Yeah. And then I think also, you know, going back to balls and shapes, it’s led him to have an interest in numbers.
Ayelet: How do you think?
Anton: Well, you know, for instance, like some of his favorite books are number books or a clock for instance. Right? It’s circular.
Ayelet: Mm. Interesting!
Anton: And then there’s numbers in the middle, right? Like at my parents’ house, I remember we had that kind of stage where he would constantly want to go to my parents like grandfather clock and then just look at the clock, but then try to, you know, you’d tell them what the numbers are. And then he’d be like, you know, three, five, eight, nine, seven, 12 but he just would be so happy doing that.
And then, but then looking at clocks with numbers has led him now in general though, I find it’s like even when you walk around and there’s house numbers, right. You know, so like with number four, four, eight, six. Yeah, I think it was like, you know, kind of one step to another step to another step.
Ayelet: Right. But I think the key there is that I find that I’ve always enjoyed watching you naturally support is his natural interest. That they’re both of them, their natural interests instead of, you know, thinking that you needed to drill him or tell him that. So can you talk a little bit about that?
Anton: I dunno. I think of, well, I mean a lot of it also has to probably go to the way that I was raised and my parents never forced anything on me. Right. It was always, if I had an interest in it, then they supported that interest and then if I stopped interest, then it was okay. Yeah, yeah. I went to things from playing sports to playing piano and so forth.
So I feel like, I think just naturally I’d want to do the same for, for our kids. I know you’re very much like that too, so we both, you know, it’s not like one of us is pushing one angle and the other one’s not. It’s, you know, we both very much, you know, understand and see when they play and they get, they gravitate towards something and try to talk to him about it or play with him on it and then see if that continues.
Because, also sometimes their interest is kind of short lived too. But then you find through that repetition that they find the things that are like, okay, wow, they’re, they’re really like, again to being our second son with balls. You could still pull that out. It’s like, yeah, okay. Yeah, ball. All right. All right. Yeah. Look what I’m going to do with this ball. Now, actually it gets a little dangerous because now he’s really like realizing how to throw a ball.
Ayelet: Oh yeah, definitely!
Anton: In the early days it was, it was easy.
Ayelet: Right? But so how do you redirect? What do you do when he wants to throw a ball?
Anton: Teach him that it’s more about rolling a ball inside and the fun that you can have rolling it and throwing it while throwing it is an outside sport.
Ayelet: And when he insists that he wants to throw it?
Anton: Then, we get on our shoes and go on outside.
Ayelet: There ya go! So what are, what are some of the things for you that have really stood out as far as your early fatherhood? Like what were some of the surprises as far as what fatherhood actually was, versus what you thought it might be like?
Anton: Hmm. That’s a good question. I don’t, I think my surprises was more about myself than, than anything else. And maybe that’s because you just never know what kind of father you’re going to be until you’re a father. And it’s just, it’s funny things like, you know, I remember when we were, when our first son was born, right. Just being really nervous about being in a taxi cab with him and is he going to be safe and you know, and these things that I would just never ever care about before or think about before. So it was like that heightened level of anxiety level.
Ayelet: It wasn’t something you thought about every day in your 20s…
Anton: Yes. So those little things, but then you know, being a parent like you know, okay, I could tell that I don’t have a lot of patience for this, but then these other areas I do see I have a lot of patience for it.
Ayelet: What are some of the things for you that you struggle with patience-wise? Especially with the sort of infant, toddler age group?
Anton: I mean the infant-toddler, I would say that it was…
Ayelet: First three years.
Anton: I would say. It’s just, just the coping and the understanding of when they’re upset about something or you want them to be happy or you’re like, I don’t understand. Like you know, you’re not an infant anymore. I just fed you. We just played a great game. Where are you still upset? Like, where are you crying or why did you just bite your brother? Uh, you know, those little things. Yeah. Yeah. Good. I think when you’re just an adult, you’re kind of like, come on two year old, why can’t you act like an adult? I think you have to take a step back and say, you know what? No, you’re two years old. What am I thinking?
Ayelet: Yeah, yeah. Your brain is actually a little bit different. Yeah.
Anton: But those, those, those, those little things, I mean also in the same time, I think we’re kind of, we, you know, knock on wood, I’ve been lucky that, yeah, we have two children that I think will, like all kids are overall quite happy, but we’ve also come at a pretty good point to understanding, you know, how to read them and how to support them. So other than the fact that maybe when they’re fighting with each other, like that’s the only kind of wildcard, you know, in the whole dynamic right now.
Ayelet: Well, and you grew up with a brother who was three years younger than you. So, this is much more in your wheelhouse than mine because I grew up without any siblings for the majority of my childhood. And then had a younger sister much later. Yeah. So I number one, didn’t grow up with boys and number two didn’t grow up with close siblings. So I’ve really struggled with that.
Anton: I think, you know, I remember with my brother, we used to fight a lot and you know, and play like the rough and tumble, but then it turned into fighting and just every like, you know, we used to just fight, but now like we’re best friends, we love each other. Right. But I, it’s just one of these things like when you grow up with a sibling, I think a lot of it too depends on, you know, the, the home life.
But I think the, the big thing is, is that where you have a hard time is understanding that you have to share and, but then also being, you know, where everything is not about you, it’s about the you and somebody else. And you’ve learned that at a very young phase, right? Like, you know, you get a toy or are you going to share, right?
Ayelet: Right, it’s not just yours.
Anton: No, it’s not just yours anymore. Everything, everything you share with the other person… You don’t have like even though like let’s say it’s your birthday, you get that Spider Man doll that you always wanted and it is yours, but is it really? Like, and so it’s hard to understand that and cope with that.
But I think also that’s kind of something, then when you get older you, it’s kind of just inherent in you like supporting and sharing and having a bit of patience because you had to go through these struggles of being a little kid of always having to deal with this other person who wanted to be like you or follow you and share your stuff and sit next to you or eat where you’re eating and doing what you’re doing. You just have to learn how to cope with that.
Ayelet: Spoken like a true older brother.
Anton: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think, you know, it changes the whole family dynamic too. I mean, as we even saw with our first child. Right. You know, I think, I mean, we had a lot of changes going on for us, but when, you know, the second was born, I think it took him a little while to to cope with that. Well, of course. I mean, I did too. I mean, there were stories about me, like me always pinching my brother’s cheeks and stuff like that when he was just a little infant and my grandmother catching me…
Ayelet: So overall you feel, I mean obviously you feel pretty, pretty good about your father, fatherly ways.
Anton: Yeah.
Ayelet: I feel pretty good about your father.
Anton: Good. Thank you.
Ayelet: Yeah, happy Father’s Day.
Anton: Thank you.
Ayelet: Thanks for coming on the podcast.
Anton: Thanks for having me. I appreciate being here.
