I love this one: > My mother came in with a great tip: when in doubt, ask second time parents, not other first timers. So true in so many levels.
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The Surreal Magnificence of Fatherhood
191–200 of 260 posts
Re: The Surreal Magnificence of Fatherhood
#192Re: The Surreal Magnificence of Fatherhood
#193I still feel that way. My kids are well into their third decades.
Re: The Surreal Magnificence of Fatherhood
#194I have four children. I have never regretted it or wished for a different path. I know it isn't for everyone, but it absolutely was and is for me. At the same time I do think articles like this should be countered with the reality that many fathers aren't overwhelmed with waves of love or "surreal magnificence". With each of my children being born the primary emotions I could point to were dread and anxiety. The sudd…
As the father of a teenager, I would also add: take parenting "wisdom" from new parents with the same grain of salt you would career advice from someone who just landed their first job. I personally found the complexities of parenting and, even more importantly, family life , don't really start to emerge until after the first few years. Talk to divorced parents of older children about the "Surreal Magnificence" of pa…
So I agree that naivety is a thing, but that doesn't mean you have to dismiss the advice. It's just that it's not wise to rely on one person's advice.
I have a two year old (well, she'll be two next week, close enough). Among my nearby friends are five couples who have have children that are one or two years older than mine. Their input has been extremely helpful in the last two years, because it's been mostly in the form of "these are the mistakes we first made and what we eventually figured out". It also helps that they are five very different couples so my partner and I can compare their experiences and figure out what applies to our situation and what doesn't.
Also, by comparison, I have friends with much older children too, and their input can essentially be reduced to "I'm sorry the first two years are a sleep-deprived haze of which my memories are limited to the photos and videos we took, so we have no advice for you."
Re: The Surreal Magnificence of Fatherhood
#195Is it like this for everyone? I sometimes wonder how large the number of cases is where the parent does not feel like that at all but refrains from sharing it due to societal expectations and fear of being judged. It would introduce a bias regarding these stories.
I absolutely do not share my true feelings about fatherhood. They would not be viewed kindly or understood by most. Also, how I feel about things does not matter, at all. My obligation is the same regardless of how I feel. So I do my best to adjust my attitude and soldier on. This is just one of the many alienating and lonely aspects of fatherhood.
> This is just one of the many alienating and lonely aspects of fatherhood.
Yes, agreed. I never share my feelings in real life for the same reason. And it is very lonely. I did therapy for six months which helped. I was in a very dark place at one point.
Re: The Surreal Magnificence of Fatherhood
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've been in such relationship once, albeit only few months. Took me few years to recover fully but it was a lifelong wakeup lesson and I started properly looking into psychology. Afterwards, no mysteries in the opposite camp anymore and straight to my wife now. How to handle various relationships and personalities should be mandatory psychology 101 somewhere around beginning of high school. It would make whole manki…
You’re right; I can’t predict the future. But I have experience having gone through extremely difficult things with my wife; both of our dads were diagnosed with cancer this year, months apart. Our relationship started only a year before a pandemic. I went through a serious depressive phase. She was diagnosed with and has been (successfully) working through dealing with her C(omplex)-PTSD. I discovered I had ADHD, an…
Do you have kids?
Re: The Surreal Magnificence of Fatherhood
#197It's f*cking hard work, for those in any doubt. It's the most difficult web server config file you've ever to edit at 4am to resolve some production outage, for years, without any hope of let up. Is it rewarding, yes, but it's a duty and there's no backup or timeout, you get to experience this 24/7 for at least a few year while they're young.
counterpoint: it's not
you don't have to sift through some indecipherable mountain of information to find a solution
you just have to provide some basic mammalian service like provide warmth or food in a first world country
it can be stressful but it's actually quite simple
Re: The Surreal Magnificence of Fatherhood
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. The reason why is because we have opportunities to move up and down the social ladder. Basically it’s not really like the whole village raised your kid before, that’s more of a romanticized version. What happened was that your extended family helped because you lived with them for your entire life. So you have a kid, your sister in law watches them along with your mother while you work. Where do you work? Well th…
> No. The reason why is because we have opportunities to move up and down the social ladder. Wait until people realize the ladder is a treadmill and any movement is an illusion of entropy. Every wave of humanity is like an ocean's endless beating against a beach.
> Every wave of humanity is like an ocean's endless beating against a beach.
"Man hands on misery to man
It deepens like the coastal shelf
Get out as early as you can
And don't have any kids yourself."
(Philip Larkin.)
Re: The Surreal Magnificence of Fatherhood
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's really interesting to read. I'm a man who has absolutely zero interest in interacting with babies and infants, but kids who can talk and ask questions can be pretty funny and cute even. My wife doesn't understand this at all.
I was the same way before having my own children. Then a switch flipped.
100% same.
And I was 51.
Re: The Surreal Magnificence of Fatherhood
#200Reading this just re-confirmed to me that I’m not cut out for parenting. I’m glad he’s digging it, but my reaction to all of the little miracles he described was either rolling my eyes or thinking “that sounds terrible”.
I was exactly the same.
Until it happened to me.