I've had a few friends ask me how it feels to be a Dad to a little girl. I thought I'll pen down a few of my thoughts and compare the same a few years from now.
First, let me clarify that it is not a "top of the world" feeling. I don't feel the same as I'd have if I had achieved a goal after years of pursuing it single-mindedly.
Second, I don't feel overwhelmed by the responsibilities and the way parenthood is going to change my life, at least not yet. I am not saying I enjoy holding on to the added responsibilities, but I don't enjoy filing my tax returns either, but I have to do that whenever I have the pleasure of earning. Ditto with parenthood.
Perhaps the closest I came to defining parenting was via the following 2 quotes to friends of mine:
(1) "My life seems more complete".
More specifically, when I moved from being a bachelor to being married, I had this huge feeling of being complete. It was as though I had spent half my life waiting to be married, and I truly felt I got granted my wish to feel more complete. I'd describe the pleasure of parenthood as something similar, though something I had to wait a lot less for. My wife and I have been married for more than 4 years now. It is not that we got bored without a kid, as one of our other friends cited to us. For me, it was more of a phase of life that was waiting to happen, perhaps waiting only for the right moment, and that moment came this year. I felt more complete as a parent than simply as a married man. Perhaps someday I'll feel even more complete as a grandparent - just that it just has to be at the right moment, not one too soon.
(2) "I feel like I have been given a precious gift - not unlike a luxury car, or an estate home - but something that'll last a life-time". I have not worked sincerely towards achieving it, and hence the feeling won't exactly compare with perhaps getting my first job. Instead, it feels like something I deserve as a gift from the Almighty, finally found its way to me.. and I love it. I remind myself constantly though, of the following Kahlil Gibran quotation:
"Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you."
1 comments:
That's really nice and practical way to put it yet it felt like it came from heart. I know people who truly feel blessed for having children but then also complain for little things like not being able to sleep till late in the mornings. Doesn't make sense to me. Some of them also envy single people around them for being like a "free-bird". I really get annoyed with that type of thinking. These are the people who've chosen to become parents themselves, without being forced into. Still they can't find happiness in what they have and always seem to just complain about one thing or the other.
I am glad you said it how it is (at least for you) and did not glorify it like most new parents initially do.
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