MY STORY OF FATHERHOOD: NEW TERRITORY AND A STATE OF BEING
Guest contributor: Kyle Turner
“There’s nothing that will prepare you for parenthood.”
“It’s the hardest and most rewarding thing you’ll ever do…”
“Get ready to never sleep again.”
En route to my wife’s delivery date and my son Hudson’s birth (on September 6th of this year), I’d heard some variation of all three of these statements. From minor acquaintances to co-workers to close friends, I’d received more advice than I could have ever wanted - even when I didn’t ask for it…lol.
When Hudson entered the world at 10:56am that day, all of that advice prepared me for a moment of tears, fright, and maybe even anxiousness. I’d expected to feel something that would shake apart the otherwise calm exterior I was showing the packed delivery room. I felt like all of the advice I’d received would bring out some long buried, emotionally overwhelming feeling. However, do you know what rushed into me in those first moments?
Relief.
Relief that my wife, Alison, not only was given the chance to stick to her birth plan, but that she executed it almost to a tee.
Relief that both the pregnancy and labor had finished without a hitch.
Relief that I would finally have something else to pour in all the useless information I have in my head so my wife wouldn’t have to look at me with that “I love you, but I couldn’t care less about this” expression.
More than anything though, it was a relief that I would finally get to experience fatherhood for myself. That I would finally get to figure out just how much of that “advice” was true and how much was just a combination of things that people say when they don’t know what else to say.
Fatherhood didn’t — and still doesn’t — feel like a transition to me, in the most literal sense of the word. It feels moreso like something that I was already doing. In fact, it feels like something I was and am always doing, in every action I take, every interaction I have with my son, every conversation I have with my wife. It’s a state of being, not a “job”, per se.
The truth is that no matter what people tell you about parenthood, you’ll never know what it’s going to mean for you or to you until you’re in it, actually doing it. A friend told me that whoever you are as a man is what you’ll be as a father. And I only kind of agree with that. Parenthood gives you a chance to see, up close and unfiltered, who and what you are as a person. It enhances all of your traits and tests your patience in ways you cannot comprehend. But it also gives you the chance to be a better version of who you are.
Parenthood is a choice, first and foremost. Having a child and BEING a parent are not synonymous. As a first time parent, this notion has been made abundantly clear to me over these last six weeks. So now, thinking about when people would tell me that there is nothing that prepares you for fatherhood, I know now that’s nonsense. EVERYTHING in your life prepares you for fatherhood. The question is whether or not you choose to reference and employ those lessons. For me, that choice couldn’t have been easier to make.
That said, I definitely don’t sleep anymore. So, I guess that advice isn’t all BS.