Parenting

Becoming a Father and Growing into a Daddy

From selfish ass to guardian of the future

Today is Father’s Day in the USA and many other countries, including Canada, the UK, and South Africa. New Zealand, however, celebrates Father’s Day on a Sunday in September.

I wrote this article a while back but held off on publishing it. Not sure why. It wasn’t specifically written for Father’s Day. I wrote it because it was one of those days — a day where I stopped and took stock of my life. I looked at how my kids changed everything in my life and how they have grown so quickly.

It was difficult initially to process the miracle of seeing a small human, made up of bits from my wife and me, become animated with life and be so innocent and fragile. To observe our first child, our daughter, a celebration of our love — her very existence a miracle — crawl and play and laugh and cry.

And so, as I took stock, my thoughts drifted back to the many challenges along the way and how it affected and changed and molded me. It tested my limits, for sure, but I learned a lot. My kids taught me to look at life with new eyes and embrace it with both arms, for their sake as well as for mine.

It also showed me that stay-at-home moms have one of the most challenging jobs in the world. It made me also appreciate the true nature of the challenges single parents must face who don’t enjoy support from a partner or a support network. They deserve so much more credit.

When we moved to New Zealand, I worked from home as a writer for the first few years before getting back to the law (which only lasted a few years. I’m back to writing full-time, after all). Lucia was only 18 months old when we arrived. Fast forward to a boy and another girl later, and you have me trying to write while looking after my very energetic brood. That included feeding everyone, keeping the house clean and laundry fresh. Incidentally, “brood” in Afrikaans means “Bread.”

Being a stay-at-home dad to three kids is now an easier task than back when they were still diaper-wearing gremlins. Many years ago, I used to work on a Kibbutz in Israel. The kibbutz had a sod farm, and I ended up spending the majority of my time there. It was fun but physically challenging. I had to stand on a narrow strip of metal on the back of a moving tractor while hauling freshly harvested slabs of sod from a side conveyor and stacking them as fast as I could without dropping or having them disintegrate in my muddy paws.

This was almost twenty years ago, and back then, they didn’t have fancy turf cutters as we do nowadays. After months of doing this, of gripping and hoisting sodden blocks of turf, the texture of my hands had become like old driftwood. They were chipped and rough, and for a while, I even lost some sensitivity in my fingers. It’s a similar effect to having wood glue dry on your fingers.

As I take my mind back to those physical days, reminiscing on how durable I used to be, and I look at what I’ve accomplished since becoming a father, I can say, with unequivocal certainty, caring for small kids on a full-time basis is by far the most challenging thing I’ve ever done.

Even my days as a lawyer, don’t come close. It made me miss the sod farm at times. I could never get used to the unholy miasma of a shit-filled diaper, but I was able to change them at speed. I sounded like Darth Vader when I did, of course, and I used half a box of wipes each time. Don’t laugh. Think crunchy caramel with the sticky resilience of tar.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my kids. My life would be meaningless and empty without them. They still siphoned all of my time and energy, leaving precious little for writing, and the times I did attempt any writing, I almost always ended up smacking the keyboard with my forehead due to lack of sleep.

And yet, I would not exchange my life with them in it for anything in the world. I have grown accustomed to them, to caring and worrying and running after them. I enjoy it immensely. It is hard to believe there was once a time I didn’t want any kids. Hell, I didn’t even want to get married. I saw my friends and the daily struggles they endured with their kids, and I remember telling myself there was no way in hell that I’m going to put myself through that. I was a selfish prick back then. More focussed on myself and my legal career and how life affected me.

I have one life, after all. I’m not going to waste it doing things I don’t like. I loved telling myself this as a way to rationalize my selfishness.

But, see, the thing with life is that it has a way of taking you on unexpected journeys. No matter your intentions. No matter your plans. If it contradicts Fate’s path for you, you can forget about best-laid plans.

The month before I met my wife, I had boasted to a friend that I would never get married. One month after I met her, we were engaged. Nine months later, we were married. That was 16 years ago. And we’re still married and happy.

Lucia just turned 13. My son, Malachi, is turning nine in a month or so and Shiloh seven in a few days. There were intolerable nights not so long ago when they were babies and their little baby bodies were wracked with fever and they could not stop crying, when I had to dance with them in my arms and softly purred songs to try and ease their discomfort and help them find some sleep. I can’t sing to save my life, but I forced myself to sound at least soothing.

Nights like these were frustrating. You can do only so much to make the little ones as comfortable as possible. Other than that, you have to allow their bodies to fight whatever virus was attacking them. And it’s this waiting and inability to take away their pain that gets to you.

Then there are the injuries they get as they grew older and became more mobile and reckless. I don’t want to revisit that day when Lucia got her first sutures. She was only five. The teacher’s face was pale, and her eyes frozen in shock when I arrived at pre-school. She had Lucia on her lap and held a pink cloth against my little one’s forehead. Lucia started crying when she saw me. Her expression was utterly fragile. I could see the teacher didn’t want to show me out of fear of my reaction. When she took her hand away, and I saw the hole in my daughter’s head, I felt the blood drain from my body in a suddenness so violent my legs almost gave in.

Lucia had accidentally tripped and bashed her head against the sharp, pointy end of a table. The wound was deep enough to show bone. She was brave, my little girl. She stopped crying after I soothed her and stayed brave on the way to the hospital. It was just Lucia and me in the car, and I needed her to remain calm and collected as I tried to get her there as quickly as possible.

I swear my beard turned grey that day.

I still find myself thinking back to that day and many other days where my kids got injured doing things kids do. Nevermind that as a five-year-old, I already had to get sutures twice. By the time I graduated high school, I had lost count of the many times I had spilled my blood because of stupid and reckless stunts. But that’s not the point. As a parent, you freak out when your kids get hurt. Some of us keep it inside, and some of us get angry at the stupid door or table that hurt your kid.

And yet, along with all these memories, there are also the happy, triumphant ones. Memories of celebrating things they had achieved: Winning a race, or, when they did not win and wanted to cry in defeat, celebrating their effort. Or when it is their birthdays or just adoring them for being part of your life. Or, Father’s Day mornings when they rush into your room with self-made cards and hugs and tell you they love you.

And you get sad, too, because they are innocent and this world is big and corrupt and filled with hate and violence. But when they clasped their short little arms around your neck and squeeze so tight like they never want to let go, you know your responsibility is a big one — a gigantic one that will last you the rest of your life.

You also realize that everything is going to be okay. These tiny humans made up of bits of you hold the future of tomorrow in their little hands. And so you will care for them and love them and teach them humanity and prepare them for the world because the light is stronger than the darkness and you will do all you can to ensure their light shine bright and fiercely when they enter adulthood.

That’s all you can do to make this world a better place to live in, for them and others.

My single, greatest regret is that my dad never got to meet my kids or my wife. He died long before I met the love of my life. I lost my dad while I was still in law school. It is something that stays with you forever and brings tears in unexpected moments. But he must have done something right because I look at my kids, and I smile.

Because I know tomorrow will be a better day than yesterday.