Ever since becoming parents almost three years ago, I’ve felt more scattered brained than usual.
No one would ever accuse me of being the most organized person in the world, especially before kids, but it seems like the last few years have been especially challenging when it comes to remembering little, every day things. It’s most noticeable when I am talking and I am about to say a word, literally any word, and it completely slips my mind. Poof. Gone. It takes a few moments for the word I was thinking of to come to me, and when it does, I always think to myself, why did it take me so long to remember the word “charger” or “remote”?
As the years have gone on and parenthood has become our new normal, things have gotten easier and I am less forgetful of the big things (homework, sports practices, packing waters and food, etc.), but every time I struggle on a word, it’s a glaring reminder of something I can’t help but wonder: Is dad brain a real thing?
I began to research, and after only a few clicks, I was immediately relived. Yes, dad brain is a real thing! Just like mom brain. Maybe we should just call it “parent brain”?
According to an article by Bahar Gholipour on Livescience.com, dads experience a hormonal change when they become parents. He writes, “Studies in animals and people show that new fathers experience an increase in the hormones estrogen, oxytocin, prolactin and glucocorticoids, according to a recent review of studies by psychologist Elizabeth Gould and colleagues from Princeton University.”
Hugh Wilson from daddlife.com attributed being a new dad to feeling like he was “Three drinks into a big night out, all the time. And without having had a drink.”
He put it into words.
Not only does our brain actually change on a chemical level when we become dads, just as it does with moms, but with the added tasks of now keeping up with another human life (or in our case, three), it is easy to see how our brains can only handle so much information at a time before they just start to…forget things.
My older sister, a mom of six, always says when she feels overloaded, she has used up all of her “bandwidth” and that she has nothing left in her for the day. I resonate with that so much, and that’s exactly how I would describe how I feel at the end of each day.
In an article for The Independent, a new study shows that “Men become better at multitasking, more empathic, and more forgetful as they help raise their young child.” The more I read, the more it all started to make sense. It’s a normal part of parenthood and being a parent, and no matter if you’re a mom or a dad or anyone raising a child, maybe you’ve experienced more forgetfulness that usual, too.
So there you have it. While it may be frustrating at times, parenthood has changed me (and us) in a million more profound, important ways than just forgetting things every now and then.
I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
