You can read every child-rearing book on the shelf and interview all the parents you know, but you can never be fully prepared for all of the life changes that come with your first baby. New mom Caroline Olling Andersen, however, found a brilliant way to deal with them. Writing poetry. (Facebook cover image: Monkey Business Images)

Image credits: Caroline Olling Andersen

“My husband is a fantastic dad,” Caroline told Bored Panda. “He is an amazing primary school teacher, and he has always brought a lot of fun and humor to our relationship, which he now also brings to daddyhood.”

Image credits: Caroline Olling Andersen

The poem quickly started making headlines on the internet and attracted all sorts of attention. “After the poem went viral, I’ve read a lot of comments which have shamed him for not being more active at night and me for complaining about his inactivity,” Caroline, who also finds the time to manage a parenting blog called The Mommy Poet, added. “Truth is, we made a deal during my pregnancy that I’d take the night shift, because I’ve been blessed with long maternity leave. [This way,] he gets to sleep so he can be ready for his 10-12 hour day teaching 10-year-olds. That said, tiredness will still cause you a lot of passive aggressive feelings in the early hours at night – hence my poem, which was written at 4 am on a particularly tiring night (everything I wrote in that poem happened on that one night).”

At first, however, the sleepy dad wasn’t amused by the poem. “When I read the poem out loud to him the next morning, he didn’t find it particularly funny – though he was simultaneously trying to soothe our fuzzy daughter, so I might have chosen the wrong time to read him a mockery poem. It was only later that day, over ice cream and a sleeping daughter, that he read it out loud and laughed and said it was brilliant. He since suggested that we get a laptop for me so I have an appropriate platform to write during my early morning waves of creativity.”

“Parenthood is tough and rough and can really strain a relationship. We make a solid attempt to place our relationship very high on our list of priorities. My parents (happily married for 29 years)- have taught me that a marriage should be prioritized above the children. As my mother said – “Happy parents results in happy children”. As per the airplane instructions – “attend to yourself before helping your child.” So that means making sure we have date nights and take time each day to put the baby down and kiss and hug each other. A lot of people have misunderstood the tone of my poem as anger towards my husband. It’s meant to be read with humor and love for both him and my daughter.”

People had a lot to say about the poem

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