So I have already written several posts in which I have spoken about or alluded to my determination that fatherhood was not going to be an excuse for me to lessen my expectations for what I wanted to achieve with my own life. Whilst I especially wasn’t ready to give up on my goals to push myself further with endurance racing and accept the ‘Dadbod’ I’d been gleefully warned about, this belief also applied to every other aspect of life.
In essence, I really didn’t want to accept any kind of reality that validated the premise that I had to give up something to be a father. Aside from the fact that this felt like a cop-out, I never wanted to my daughter to feel like she was responsible for any of my unfulfilled ambitions. With the benefit of hindsight, this was hopelessly naïve, if conceived of the best intentions.
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I have heard about the “Terrible twos,” but was finding it hard to imagine with my daughter at one point. She was such an affable child that she really only cried if she was hurt, hungry or scared, so the idea of a tantrum seemed strange.
Then they started. My previously resilient little girl could go from happy to wailing at the drop of a hat (sometimes literally). And it didn’t happen when she was two either, but at around 18 months (I know some parents take great pride in their child reaching milestones early, but this was not a cause of celebration in our house). I should add that these events are still pretty rare and for the most part my daughter is a strong and happy child. But we did notice that it suddenly wasn’t taking much to make her cry- or for her to stop and laugh again. |
Dad thoughtsI haven’t had much chance to write much over the last couple of weeks. This has largely been to do with the birth of my daughter, which has had a profound impact on my life. As a corollary of this, a fair amount of my thoughts and observations may shift to the new topic of parenthood. I’m not planning on stealing from Sonia Kruger’s playbook and use the phrase, “as a parent,’ to make claims with no factual basis, but parenthood is a complex and fascinating area so I will be making a few comments about my experience of it. Archives
October 2020
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