From New York to Utah: a father in transition
Saying goodbye to what you love is okay. “Being a parent is humbling.” Guest author Dan Oshinsky.
A few weeks ago I got hooked on a text by Dan Oshinsky, an expert who is well known in the micro-world of newsletters. At 37 years old, he talked about a big change he is experiencing: he left behind his life in New York to move to Utah, a decision that was mostly marked by his becoming a father.
After being a newsletter director at BuzzFeed and The New Yorker, Oshinsky runs Inbox Collective, his own company. From a business standpoint and from a distance, leaving a city like New York might seem counterintuitive. Perhaps that's why the text caught my attention at first, but then it grabbed me because of the honesty with which it addresses some of the challenges and realities of parenthood.
With some humor, Oshinsky shares reflections on this big life change and does so by interweaving everyday, human moments that many parents (involved in raising a child) may recognize — such as the difficulties of managing time while raising a little one and the unexpected nature of family life.
““Being a parent is humbling,” Oshinsky writes, reflecting on the vulnerability and lack of control many of us parents feel vis-a-vis the unpredictability and daily sacrifices of raising children.
Here comes his text, republished in full, with permission by Dan.
I Am 37 Years Old. This Is What I Believe.
I’m 37 years old, and I know that it’s okay to say goodbye to something you love.
By Dan Oshinsky
We made a big move this spring, moving from New York to Park City, Utah. Those last few months in New York were bittersweet — we were marking an end to a wonderful era in our life. I’d lived in New York for a dozen years, and Sally for even longer. When we met, we were in our 20s. We grew into adulthood in the city, got married, made amazing friendships, started new careers, traveled. And then we had Ben, and we swapped out weeknight concerts and dinners for naptimes and singalongs. So much in our life changed when Ben arrived, but for the better, and New York was still a constant in our lives.
We recognized, sometime over the winter, that it was time for us to move. Sally was working most weekends, and I was often solo with Ben — and that’s on top of running my business and trying to have a life outside of parenting and work. I remember a Saturday when I had to hire a babysitter for a few hours so I could photocopy some tax forms. (Nothing like a weekend afternoon at FedExOffice!) We were making it work, but it wasn’t really working for us.
So we said our goodbyes and headed west to be closer to family. In a way, leaving New York gave us permission to move fully into this new era as parents. We’re filling our weeks with new things, new memories. We’re taking Ben on hikes and to swim classes at the local pool. We’re going on weekend adventures to new places. We’re discovering new favorite restaurants. We’re getting snow tires for the car and getting skis waxed for ski season. We’re making new friends, and we’re watching Ben grow up in real time. It feels like he’s transformed into a real person ever since we arrived in Utah — he’s walking and talking and is so fun to spend time with. It’s exciting to be in this moment and live in a place where everything is new.
Do I miss New York? Absolutely. I miss the people and the energy and the bagels (especially the bagels). But there are nights when Sally and I will sit on our back patio, watching the sun go down behind the mountains while we eat dinner and unwind from the day.
It feels right. It feels like we’re at the start of something exciting.
It feels like home.
Over the past year, there are certain things I’ve come to believe hold true. I know that my beliefs will continue to change. I know that I will change.
But here, at 37, is what I believe:
“It goes so fast” is the most annoying parenting advice. It’s also annoyingly correct.
There are days when I can be on a literal stage, sharing my expertise with hundreds of people, and just a few hours later, I’m negotiating with a tiny human who does not care about my expertise and does not want to listen to me as I beg him to stop throwing spaghetti across the room. Being a parent is humbling.
Also humbling: Asking another parent in the daycare drop-off line what they do for work and being told, “I’m an Olympian.”
Parenting a toddler means it will become entirely normal that, several times a day, you’ll stick your entire nose into another human’s butt and tell your spouse, “No, I don’t think he pooped.”
Whoever said “do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life” was never a working parent whose daycare only operated from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and who had to cram eight hours of work into a six-hour window. I don’t know if parenting is hard, but the time-management part of it certainly is.
I need to say this, too: I wouldn’t trade anything for the time I get with my son.
When they’re babysitting, let the grandparents do their thing. Don’t supervise or intervene. And don’t ask later what they did while you were gone. (You won’t approve of it anyway.) If your child is alive and happy when you pick them up, the grandparents did their job.
Heck, most days, I don’t even need the “happy” part. If my son still has the same number of fingers and teeth as when I dropped him off, that’s good enough for me.
A sign that my business is growing the way I want is that I’m saying “no” more than I’m saying “yes.”
A good day is a day where I spend more time doing than worrying.
You don’t always have all the answers, but keep an eye out for the people willing to work hard to find them. Those are the people you should be working with.
I’m sure there will be a day when it becomes totally normal to see a moose walking down my street, but today is not that day.
No matter what you’ve been told, there is never a good reason to order food at the Margaritaville in Times Square.
There are plenty of days when things feel hectic and hurried. But I know that in a decade or more, I’ll look back on these days and think: Things were so easy then!
I try to remind myself to say thank you more often. I’ll say it for the little things: When Ben has a good night of sleep, when Sally does something small and kind to help, when a friend checks in to see how things are going. It always feels good to feel grateful.
And finally: I don’t know what will happen tomorrow, or next year, or four years from now. But I’m hopeful about the future, about the idea that we can make something better than we have today. I remind myself to aim not for perfection, but progress. Maybe it’s foolish, and maybe it’s naïve, but I still want to make things a little better — for Sally, for Ben, for all of us.
This is us for now. Thank you very much to those who keep sharing this newsletter, subscribing and writing to me (you can always do it by answering this mail, I answer everything!).
I love it when you send me suggestions or complete, criticize or correct some idea. I also love it when you share your own experiences. From the bottom of my heart, thank you so much.
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With love,
Nacho
🙏 Many thanks to Worldcrunch for translating and editing this newsletter.
