When I was growing up, my life was pretty much laid out for me. I would graduate from high school, go to college, graduate, get a job, get married and have kids. It was what my parents had done, more or less, and seemed to be the most sensible thing to do. I always imagined that I would be the kind of father to my kids that my father had been for me – kind, loving, supportive and always full of pride.
Salena and I were married for a couple of years before we were finally able to conceive. When we learned she was pregnant, we both wept for joy at what we were about to experience. Actually, Salena ran past me in the OB/GYN waiting room, with tears streaming down her face, and out to the car. Only after I caught up with her did she stop crying long enough to tell me that I was going to be a father.
The next 9 months were the longest 9 months of my life – although it probably seemed like 18 to her – and we counted down the days with anticipation. I SO looked forward to being a father, mentor, teacher, and friend. I imagined that I would spend all of my waking hours, teaching them everything that I had learned in school, everything that my parents had taught me, all of life’s lessons – both good and bad – and the keys to success and happiness. I would pass on my years of experience in life, and save them from the heartaches that I had growing up, and give them 18 years of childhood bliss. They would have the easiest childhood ever known to man, and I would be heralded by them and the world over for raising the perfect kids.
That was my dream, and it was quite rudely interrupted at about 9:30 am on December 27, 1990.
Emily decided early in the womb that she didn’t like playing by the rules, and that she wanted to come out feet first, like a slide I suppose. Looking back, that should have been an indicator to us about her future attitudes about rules in life, but we were too naïve to pick up on it at the time. So she was delivered by C-section, in what I can only characterize as an experience that I don’t ever want to repeat. And I wasn’t even the one being operated on! So there was my first lesson in fatherhood – don’t ever participate in, or even watch, a surgical procedure.
But I made it through that experience, as did Salena, and when I first held Emily in my arms, and saw the way my Dad looked at me while I was holding her, I was overcome by emotions and felt extremely intimidated. How could Salena and I, just kids in our early twenties, be entrusted with someone’s life? We hadn’t even had good experiences with goldfish.
But my second lesson in fatherhood – not counting ‘don’t pick the baby up after putting on my suit and tie for work’ – was that time is the best teacher. Over the coming months and years, what originally seemed so impossible and daunting to me as a new father, seemed to come more naturally. Emily, and then Evan just 10 short months later, actually seemed to like me, and there was nothing in the world better than falling asleep with them on my chest. That doesn’t happen too much anymore, which is probably a good thing.
As the kids got older, my dreams of the kids being analogous to sponges, eager to soak up all of this invaluable knowledge Salena and I had to offer, listening with rapt attention and wide eyes to stories from our childhood, were quickly dashed. If I had a nickel for every time they actually seemed to be listening to me teaching them a life lesson, well, I’d have a nickel. I can’t tell you how my heart beamed with pride when I overheard a 5 year old Emily telling Evan one day, while they were watching TV, that “Daddy said if an alligator ever chases you, you should run zig-zagged so he can’t catch you”. Of all the lessons she chose to remember…
So contrary to what I believed before I was a father, I have found that our kids could quite easily get by on their own, and actually teach me a lot about life, and about myself in the process. Those lessons continue to this day.
There are the standard things of course – they have taught me to be patient, or rather how much patience I don’t have and how much my parents had. Although I have gotten better lately, the 9 weeks between report cards still seems interminably long sometimes.
They’ve taught me the power of love, as it relates to both giving and receiving. You often hear new parents say they had no idea how much they could love until they had children. And while, in true Unitarian Universalist tradition, I would never presume that this is true for everyone, it’s certainly what we experienced. They have taught us that love between us and them – and between Salena and I as their parents – is what gets us through each day and makes us stronger. Because I believe this, I am a father.
They have taught me to appreciate even the simplest things in life. The look of pure wonder and amazement on a child’s face as they see a brightly colored flower for the first time, or notice butterflies flying through the yard – things that we often don’t notice in the hustle and bustle of our lives – this look makes us stop and take notice and realize how precious life is, and how important it is to appreciate every day. Because I believe this, I am a father.
I have learned more teaching the kids in my RE classes than I ever imagined. The last two years of teaching has been everything that I hoped it would be. I have learned more about Unitarian Universalism and other worldly faiths than even the kids did. I’ve learned how to dance Native American dances, all the elements of a Catholic Mass, and where to put my shoes when I enter a Buddhist temple. And most importantly I’ve learned how hard it is getting, and then keeping the attention of a dozen 9 and 10 year olds.
They have taught me hope, and optimism that each day is a new day, ready to burst forth with new opportunities, new experiences and another chance to experience this thing called life. I am continually astounded, and have been for almost 15 years, how one of my children can go to bed so angry at me for punishing them or scolding them for something they’ve done, and yet wake up the next morning ready to forgive me and love me just as much as always. Doesn’t always happen that way, and rarely works when Salena is mad at me, but I am amazed and heartened when it does.
But the biggest lesson of all that I’ve learned from my children is this: this unconditional love for me, and the knowledge in their minds that I will love them no matter what, is something I never would have imagined in all of my wildest dreams. They know, and I know that no matter what choices they make in their lives, no matter what they might say or do or believe, I will love them each new day more than the last.
Because I believe this, I’m a dad.