Everything I needed to know about kids, I learned from taking care of drunks in college

I learned a lot of things in my five years of college: how my body reacts to seven cups of coffee after being awake for two days straight, how to write five pages of semi coherent babble and still sound like I had actually read the book and how to look like I knew what I was doing while playing pool (I think I also took some English classes). But as I became a parent I realized I also learned a lot about raising children. Not from any early childhood development classes; I learned a lot by taking care of drunks.

I didn’t drink while in college (I got all my drinking out of the way in high school like a good American). Because  I was sober, I was always the designated driver, or because we usually partied at friends’ houses, I was everyone’s mom, taking care of puking twentysomethings. Oh, it was a good time: holding people up so they could empty their stomachs into the toilet or breaking up fights  — alcohol makes parties so much “fun.” And when I wasn’t doing that, I was bouncing concerts. Not that I’m a big, tough guy: I’m just a big guy. My job was to stand by the front door of the club, be bigger than everyone else and be on the lookout for the police. This was another job where I got to deal with drunks, although I didn’t know many of them so it was much easier to just shove them out the door if they were going to blow chunks or start a fight.

So I had five years’ experience with drunks and now I’ve had more than six years’ experience with kids, and I can tell you there are many similarities between the two.

Although belligerent, they are easy to please: A drunk friend will yell all night until he gets a bottle of beer; a baby will cry all night until he gets a bottle of milk. Basically if you can just get them what they want quickly, a drunk or a baby will be very happy and will show you great affection for your trouble; the baby will snuggle with you and the drunk will say, “I love you, man!” right before he passes out in the bath tub. One difference: your baby will rarely wake up in the middle of the night and demand you take him to the convenience store to get a microwaved barbecue pork sandwich.

Their violence is easy to avoid: As toddlers grow up, they start to establish their independence and many times that means they will lash out at their parents. Hitting, biting and scratching are common, as are screaming, temper tantrums and even literally shaking with rage. This is a phase all kids go through, and, if handled with compassion and patience, one that will pass with time. Plus, if they do hit you, they’re tiny, and it really doesn’t hurt. Drunks do the same things but that’s because they’re ignorant drunks. They can be handled with violence but mostly just talking to them will calm them down, and you might even get a drunken, smelly hug out of it. Plus, they have terrible aim and you can easily sidestep their wild, roundhouse punches.

Oh, the smells you will smell: Babies stink … bad. People who go on and on about “new baby smell” don’t hang around long enough to really sniff the horrors that can come out of a child. No matter what end of the baby you are talking about, smelly things come flying out of babies on a daily basis. And then there are the things related to babies that smell: highly fragranced baby wipes, plastic toys impregnated with fake fruit scents and the dreaded milk bottle found under the front seat of the car after a week in the August sun. But I was ready for this because of my college days dealing with drinking adults. Drunks just reek of alcohol and puke (which is bad enough) but in this case there is a difference in how you deal with them: Children you clean up and put into new clothes and lovingly hold them if they’re feeling under the weather; with drunks, you help them through the actual puking part so they don’t die then you put them to bed fully clothed and let them deal with their own mess in the morning.

I’m sure I learned other things about dealing with kids in college but, as with most things I learned in college, it was the good (and bad) times spent with friends that have stuck with me and now seem the most important.

Originally published on stltoday.com