First Thoughts on Fatherhood

Pictured here is Naomi in the one article of clothing over which I exercised some choice. I love the poignancy and accuracy of the image: our little pink bulldog.

This leap into fatherhood has been an amazing, a surprising experience. I wasn't sure what to expect, and had doubts as to my own readiness: would I be able to recognize myself in the clichés perpetuated by newly minted parents and their sympathizers? In this age in which the ironic carries the day, would the force of a new life be enough to sway a jaded heart? And if I felt nothing, could I disguise this or find some compensation for the inevitable guilt at being underwhelmed?

These questions are very real, and for many they signal battles actually faced and not simply imagined. In the sheer mystery of experience, however, I am grateful to say that these questions simply faded before the face of my daughter - this small human, frail in her otherness but no less independent because of that frailty. Not to wax Levinasian, but I have been overwhelmed by an immense sensation of responsibility and joy when holding her, looking into the eyes of a person whom I had a part in bringing to this world, and to whom I am now accountable: over even these early weeks, I have learned to pray that this child will somehow learn to forgive the ways in which I have failed her, will fail her. My own father saw me come into the world when he was the same age as I am now, and his life stands as a warning - what the biblical prophets would call a 'byword' - to me not to be careless. At times I have to keep myself from being overcome by this sense of answerability: and the sheer joy and surprise of fatherhood goes a long way toward offsetting those emotions.

I have hardly begun the long process of parenthood, and no doubt my sense of the tensive emotions of fathering will shift and mature over the coming years, but already the experience is more rich and multifaceted than I could have imagined.

Of course, when changing a diaper at 3am, there is none of this wonder - only a bleary-eyed half-dead mechanical process, and the desperate hope for some sleep. Just a little sleep. Please.