Being A Father Is A Privilege

Read some thoughts about fatherhood before father’s day.

I am not an expert in raising children. I have only one: a son, who is now turning twenty this year.

So, my sample size is tiny, but my longitudinal approach compensates for the small number of samples.

Surprise start of my fatherhood

I went to Nice, France, for a conference in February 2002. It was one of those chilly Mediterranean winter weeks with busy business people thring to stay warm by having a couple of too many glasses of tasty wine.

I missed home. My wife arrived from Japan three months earlier, and I wanted to be home with her instead of listening to slurring business talk.

When I finally arrived home, after being almost two weeks away, my wife was so sick that she could hardly walk.

I didn’t even take my coat off but called a taxi, and off we went to the hospital.

After a quick run to the emergency, I met the doctor — a tall, lanky older man with round glasses looking a bit like Sigmund Freud.

I asked the doctor what was wrong with my wife.

“Young man, your wife is not sick; she is pregnant” was the blunt answer to my worries.

There went our holidays in Europe out of the window

Life was easy until it wasn’t anymore. I was 46, and my wife 36. We had a plan to travel and enjoy the financial fruits of my well-paid job as a Director.

The news about the pregnancy was great, scary and ruined our plans like a tsunami.

My wife was sick for the first four months of her pregnancy. It was awful to see her suffering and to be so ill. I had never seen anything like that.

But the worst was still to come.

The fright of my life

When the pregnancy was in its sixth month and the morning sickness was just a distant memory, we got a call to come to a screening because my wife was over 35 years old.

It was a routine thing. Or so we thought.

The nurse took us in and started the scan. Suddenly she looked very stern and said: “You need to see a genetics specialist”.

The nurse found a small cyst in the head of our unborn baby. It might indicate that the baby had a genetic disorder and might not live more than two weeks after birth.

Luckily we got an appointment with the leading specialist in this field for the following morning.

I have forgotten all the medical terms very actively, but I remember searching the whole night on the internet about what this trisomy of some bloody gene can cause.

My wife was in tears and a total mess, as you can imagine.

No sleep that night.

The specialist

“What the hell,” said the specialist when we went to meet him with red eyes and shaky, “this nurse went way off the line. There is only one research on this particular thing, and there is only one in a million chance that your baby even has this condition”.

Suddenly the sun started to shine again, and the summer was back in Finland.

But I still remember the horror and fear we felt. It caused us to wait for our baby even with more intense feelings of joy and relief.

Ten fingers and toes

The birth wasn’t easy either. After almost 48 hours of labour, the doctor rushed in and said, “we need to operate now; the oxygen levels of the baby might drop, and a cesarian section is essential to ensure that the baby will not have any brain damage”.

I had five minutes to change my clothes to the operating room robe, rush there and see how my wife had an epidural and was scared, not knowing anything about what was happening to her. She didn’t speak Finnish, and nobody took the trouble to try to explain anything in English.

I was holding my wife’s hand, trying to whisper that it was all right, when I heard a cry. Our baby was born.

I cut the chord, got this little slimy thing on my arms, and showed it to my wife, who smiled a little and went to chemical sleep.

I quickly counted the fingers and toes: yes, ten of each. He was a complete and healthy boy.

The bond between a father and a son

The midwife took us to another room where they kept the newborn babies. She washed our son and gave him back to me.

I was looking at him with tears in my eyes. And even though I knew newborns don’t see much more than blurred orbs, I could swear that his intensive big brown eyes looked at me, knowing who I was.

There we were, unexpected comrades. I knew that I had never loved anybody more than him, and I would never be able to love anybody more.

I knew that we were together in this life for a reason, and it was my job to find out what it was.

The reason for the bond between my son and me

Now, almost twenty years later, I can see some themes coming to the surface.

My son chose me as his father because he is an old soul. Wiser in many ways than me.

He chose me because he needed to teach me what is important in life. He knew that without him, I would have been just a selfish old dick and become a cynic bully without any sense of values or respect for life.

I quit my corporate job when he was one year old and started to work from home. I wanted to see him grow and not be absent on the other side of the world in some business lounge while he has his first things of everything.

I have never regretted the money I lost but being grateful to him for the abundance of love I got instead.

Raising a son is not for the fainthearted

After the horrible pregnancy, we were a happy family. Our son has been a healthy, active and curious little man.

He has given us joy that is impossible to put in words.

He has been raising us — and especially me more than I have been able to raise him.

The bond we share made me more aware of other people. My son is so gentle, generous and kind that sometimes I have to pinch myself to verify that I am not dreaming.

We never had any problems like so many parents of teenagers have. Our communication has been open, honest and consistent.

But there is always this fear that every parent shares: what if something happens to our child? This irrational fear can cause parents to become over-protective and put their children in golden cages.

It was a constant struggle to remind ourselves that we cannot live our son’s life but just help him become who he truly wants to be.

The final lessons I learned about fatherhood so far

Our children are there to teach us life. Not the other way round.

We can be their springboard or runaway, but we cannot fly on their behalf.

Twenty years go quick. Suddenly I am this old dude watching my son becoming a handsome young man.

His dreams are still new and shiny in his eyes, and when he looks at me with those gentle, big brown eyes, I am born again and again as a father and a human being.

The bond that binds us on the 5th of October 2002 at 11:40 pm will never break.

My son keeps me alive. That’s the lesson I have learned from him.

I am a curiosity expert; if you want to know how I can help you to become a more curious leader, creative and confident thinker, book a free discovery meeting with me here.

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