>how has parenting changed you?
>and your way of life? more challenging? easier?

It's changed everything. How I prioritize, how I think, how I behave, even how I speak.

I don't know a single decent father who doesn't want to crack the world open and make everything safe, perfect and right for their child. I think about my finances in a much bigger picture, literally ALL sticker shock evaporated when I got my first 10,000 USD bill from the hospital just for C-section anesthetic -- and that was WITH insurance. Think about neighborhoods very differently. I used to not really give a shit if where I lived was sketchy. Since having a kid and moving to Inwood, there have been two drive-bys that were entirely too close and personal to my liking, and for the first time, I was actually scared, because it's something I can't protect my kid from. Which leads to the next thing, about how cruel and merciless society is, and that while I think of my son as this unique, wonderful human being, the rest of the world kind of just sees him as another thing to grind down. I've become more disciplined, because if I can't do that, how can I ask the boy to. It's changed the dynamic of my whole family. I'm closer with people I've spent my whole life running from, and it's owed to this great little kid who's charmed even terminally unlikeable dickwads into tolerable human beings. It's a harder life in some ways... but immensely more satisfying. Immeasurably more satisfying.

>
>when are we hanging out?

Oy. With the hanging out.

Let me finish grad school!