The Life of Dad by Jon Finkel & Art Eddy

Author:Jon Finkel & Art Eddy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Adams Media

CHAPTER 7

Embracing New Roles

“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”

—Charles Darwin, Father of Ten

Newborn Rules: What Not to Do When You Go Back to Work

Dale Earnhardt Jr.

DADOGRAPHY

Twitter: @DaleJr

Born: October 10, 1974

Kid: Isla Rose

Career: NASCAR Legend

As a third-generation race car driver and the son of one of the most famous and successful racers of all time, Dale Earnhardt Jr. had an enormous amount of pressure on him as he began his own NASCAR career behind the wheel. His father, Dale Earnhardt Sr., aka the Intimidator, won seven Winston Cup championships, including a Daytona 500 win in 1998. Junior could have been forgiven for shying away from the pressure or faltering under the weight of expectations, but he did neither of those things.

Over the course of his own racing career, he won over twenty races, including two Daytona 500s (2004 and 2014), while also being voted NASCAR’s most popular driver fifteen times in a row. In terms of most influential athletes of his generation, he is often listed in the same breath as luminaries like Derek Jeter, Peyton Manning, and LeBron James. When we spoke with Junior, he had just completed his autobiography, Racing to the Finish, and started on the next phase of his life: fatherhood.

LOD: Since you are in the thick of it in terms of becoming a new dad with an infant at home, do you have any advice for other brand-new dads or guys whose partners are due with their first child soon?

DE: You’re going to be at home for a bit after your baby is born, and then life goes on and you go back to doing whatever it is you do. You’re going to be doing the things at night that your wife’s doing. You’re going to be fixing bottles and feeding and struggling to get a good night’s sleep. And then you’ll have to go to work. But one thing you can’t do when you get home is talk about how tired you are. Even if you had the worst day, don’t walk in the door and say, “You aren’t gonna believe this,” because your wife doesn’t care. You’re wasting your time.

Nothing that happened to you that day is going to matter. It took me a while to really understand that, and I still catch myself talking to my wife about something that has stressed me out and then I realize I shouldn’t be complaining about this because I don’t have half the responsibility she has taking care of this little baby all day, every day. Everything everybody says about fatherhood is true. Once that baby is home, you’ve got to dial back what you think and focus on your wife and keeping her and your new baby healthy. You want things to go as smooth as possible since she’s probably going to be doing most of the work.

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