Thoughts from a Father

I am so excited to be a dad. At least I know that.

My other emotions, and there are others, are difficult to pinpoint exactly. I cannot blame an emotional, hormone-driven roller coaster like my wife can for an inability to describe the emotions that accompany our child. No. Like Ron Weasley I probably have the emotional capacity of a teaspoon.

I think I am scared as well. I am scared because I am still an idiot. I have made positive strides in my life, most of which have been accelerated forward due to the BEST decision I ever made- to marry Carrie. But I know too well my own shortcomings. I fear that my flaws will be exposed and magnified by our child. I could hurt him, and that scares me.

But I am hopeful too. I hope that my fears are in some ways similar to my fears that my actions somehow affect whether the Red Sox win or lose. While I may take a Red Sox playoff loss personally because I did not do my due dilligence (e.g., wear "winning" clothes, sport the needed rally cap, watch the game from a "winning" location) in reality I had no effect on the game. Of course my personality and parental choices will affect my son, but I believe he will come to our family with a soul or even some genetic tendencies, that I can do nothing about. I guess I am scared about his genetic endowment/soul, partly because half them genes done come from me, too. But I can't do anything about it.

But I can. I have long thought that children, while they have their own personalities, are like sponges. I do not like the blank slate analogy because that negates the individual makeup of a person that I believe we each have. And kids come to earth, and they want to learn. Like sponges, they soak up all that is around them. If parents do not work to surround their children with useful, good information to "soak in", kids will let other sources fill up their heads: TV, friends, internet, etc. that often have alterior motives. So I can have a positive influence on my son, but I guess that increases my responsibility level as well which is scary.

So at this point in my inner dialogue about my feelings I am feeling all sorts of both excited, scared, and hopeful. What is weird is that the things that sometimes help me feel at peace are sometimes the very things that intimidate me.

I think what gives me the most hope is my own parents and especially my father. I know a bit about their weaknesses, as I was a teenager once, however mild-mannered. They are not perfect. And yet I am not too crummy a person. My siblings are all reasonably well-adjusted people, outside of Meredith (a sure-fire axe-murderer/Dartmouth chainsaw massacre instigator- mark my words). I am sure that my father felt stress when I was born about his part in my life, and I turned out okay. If he can do it, I can also. In fact I think that both my father and mother did a great job, especially with my siblings besides the aforementioned future axe-murderer.

I also hope that my psychology professor at BYU was right when he told us not to over-think parenthood and that humans naturally understand how to parent their children and that children are very resilient even when you make mistakes.

And if this post is emotionally confusing, welcome to my world.