"In the beginning there was the hospital,I hate to start on a less than optimistic tone--it is not the style I choose when I get to choose one--but we daddys have a bum rap. Its a non-helping, spouse-demeaning, emotionally-stunted, type of rap that--like all bum raps--someone probably earned for us. And yet, the likelihood that our terrible reputation applies to any one of us ranges wildly from daddy to daddy.
and very few people seemed to expect me at the hospital.
When they did expect me, most expected me to be an ornament.
When I turned out to be no ornament, most assumed me to be controlling.
When it turned out I was not, few seemed to have any idea what to do with me."
In some ways this blog is about the opposite of our bum rap. Its about the things fathers today care about when they care about being fathers. Some would be familiar to my father's father: Providing a safe home, an education, and opportunities in general. Others--like picking diaper cream or wearing a baby carrier without surrendering my inner action hero--are still beyond my own father's well-intentioned best attempts. All are things that took center stage on the frightening and wonderful day our firstborn showed up to meet us.
I am going to write about me, and my newborn son, and my very patient very understanding spouse, but I hope that is not all that I am really writing about.
Because I am sick of the bum rap, and I know I don't deserve it.
Thanks for sticking up for us! We need it. We have an important role too.
ReplyDelete~Matt