In the next 2-3 months I am going to be a dad. It seems like a normal sentence, one which could have been written by any of several billion people over human history. Yet as every expectant father knows, there is nothing in all that shared experience and knowledge that helps you feel even a little bit more capable or prepared for the task.
I have often “joked” here that we won't be doing the whole crying thing – I will have a chat. I will explain acceptable behaviour. Tantrums? No. That will not happen. This will be a civilised parenting experience. My world is a rational one. It has a methodology. It takes me from one point to another.
The emotional side of things I have never been great with in honesty. After saying “there, there” I am, in honesty, done. There is a set quantity (small) of responding to emotions that I consider to be unavoidable. I don’t want to sound cold...really…but people crying…it's all a bit dull in honesty…and loud crying..well that’s just bad manners.
So I picture myself at 3 am with a crying baby not knowing how to settle it..and I feel very, very lost and, well.... really rather broken.
Please don’t get me wrong. I am very excited by it all too, really I am. Just also terrified.
With every bit of breath in my body, with all that I am, I ask that God might guide me and transform me into a person who won't completely screw up my childs life.
Yours in fear,
The Broken Man
Showing posts with label fear. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fear. Show all posts
Wednesday, 15 October 2008
Tuesday, 2 September 2008
Baby Fears
I have been looking up stage of developments on the web...as one does... I am told that my baby now weighs 1.7 pounds, and is 14 inches long, retinas are forming and brain wave activity is detectable. Its incredible!
Okay, maybe more so if you are expecting a baby!
I will add a picture this evening – I note someone suggested I put a pic of me up as well.…on an anonymous blog this would seem difficult. I could put a pic of my stomach up as well as my wifes...i look fairly pregnant myself...but trust me...that, you don’t want to see!
The sister of one of my wife's collegues has just had a still birth. She was at about the same stage we are now. I don’t know how I would cope if that happened to us – it makes me want to cry just to think about it – what she must be going through. I can't begin to imagine – and a part of me doesn’t want to – I realise a part of me just doesn’t want to think about it
I am so scared; scared for my baby, scared for my wife, scared for the kind of father I am meant to be – as much as I joke about the perfect baby, perfect father bit – well I am sure you all know, I am scared stupid about getting it all wrong, and I am not sure I could bear losing either one of them.
Yours,
The Broken man
Okay, maybe more so if you are expecting a baby!
I will add a picture this evening – I note someone suggested I put a pic of me up as well.…on an anonymous blog this would seem difficult. I could put a pic of my stomach up as well as my wifes...i look fairly pregnant myself...but trust me...that, you don’t want to see!
The sister of one of my wife's collegues has just had a still birth. She was at about the same stage we are now. I don’t know how I would cope if that happened to us – it makes me want to cry just to think about it – what she must be going through. I can't begin to imagine – and a part of me doesn’t want to – I realise a part of me just doesn’t want to think about it
I am so scared; scared for my baby, scared for my wife, scared for the kind of father I am meant to be – as much as I joke about the perfect baby, perfect father bit – well I am sure you all know, I am scared stupid about getting it all wrong, and I am not sure I could bear losing either one of them.
Yours,
The Broken man
Wednesday, 16 July 2008
Push Me Around
I have just received from a colleague at work a fab 3 wheeler pushchair. The colleague no longer needs it as his next baby due in 3 months is going to be a girl, and the pushchair is blue. Words fail me! The pushchair is a forward facing, three wheeler type. My wife has made it clear to me that if we do have a pushchair at all it would need to be rear facing – and that "not at all" seems more likely – but dear reader…its lovely in all the ways things shouldn’t be as the "eco father-to-be". It's chrome and shiney and synthetic – and I love it!!
Last night I watched the programme "Goodnight Sweetheart". For those not familiar with the series, it involves someone who has a portal between modern day and war torn Britain during the Second World War; this results in him meeting his son in the 20th (it's quite an old series!) Century, who is by now older than he is, and a down-on-his-luck alcoholic. He is racked with guilt about how his son's life could have turned out this way; how he could have failed him as a father. He goes back through the time rift and sets up a trust fund for his son. On returning to the 20th Century that afternoon, his son appears in his shop, this time wearing a suit, married with children and having made a success of his life, which he puts down to the start his dad gave him in life with his trust fund.
As I watched it I, of course, being over-emotional, found myself in tears. I know its not that easy, that it’s a huge simplification of things, that money doesn’t buy happiness etc, but I am so scared that I will fail my child.
When I look at my own past, and I think of the impact actions on my part or the part of others had, the ramifications of them still echo today. When I was 15 years old I was expelled from school for drug dealing. Unable to get into any other school I sat at home all day on my own, my mother at work. My parents were already divorced. My father died within a year, my grandfather had died a few weeks before. My life was, at that young age, already in tatters. Don’t get me wrong I came out the other side of it, I survived and, by the grace of God, I escaped the early grave that my older brother ended up in. With God it is possible to rewrite the future if not the past..but I turn my thoughts to my child-to-be; will I be a better parent than my parents were to me all those years ago?
When you carry a child or when you push a child in a pushchair, it is your hand that determines the direction they travel in. Yes, they may veer off course, there may be bumps in the road, and eventually they will walk on their own, but for at least a while it will be you – it will be me and my wife who set the direction for our child.
Will I be able to support my baby, help give the foundation that will stop him/her going off the rails, show love which will they will know is unconditional? I am so so scared that I will mess it all up; I wouldn’t wish the life I have led on anyone. In my youth I thought that having a child was the most selfish thing in the world to do – bringing someone into this world to live and die and suffer was the ultimate selfish act. Yet, we are designed to want to have children, and God created humanity aware of the suffering that would be experienced, but deciding that the suffering is worth the joy.
Lord God, let the joy outweigh the suffering, the good times outweigh the bad, help me be the father I should be, put your hand on my wife and baby, look on them with favour, not because I am a faithful servant, but in spite of who I am and the things I have done.
Yours as ever,
The Broken Man
Last night I watched the programme "Goodnight Sweetheart". For those not familiar with the series, it involves someone who has a portal between modern day and war torn Britain during the Second World War; this results in him meeting his son in the 20th (it's quite an old series!) Century, who is by now older than he is, and a down-on-his-luck alcoholic. He is racked with guilt about how his son's life could have turned out this way; how he could have failed him as a father. He goes back through the time rift and sets up a trust fund for his son. On returning to the 20th Century that afternoon, his son appears in his shop, this time wearing a suit, married with children and having made a success of his life, which he puts down to the start his dad gave him in life with his trust fund.
As I watched it I, of course, being over-emotional, found myself in tears. I know its not that easy, that it’s a huge simplification of things, that money doesn’t buy happiness etc, but I am so scared that I will fail my child.
When I look at my own past, and I think of the impact actions on my part or the part of others had, the ramifications of them still echo today. When I was 15 years old I was expelled from school for drug dealing. Unable to get into any other school I sat at home all day on my own, my mother at work. My parents were already divorced. My father died within a year, my grandfather had died a few weeks before. My life was, at that young age, already in tatters. Don’t get me wrong I came out the other side of it, I survived and, by the grace of God, I escaped the early grave that my older brother ended up in. With God it is possible to rewrite the future if not the past..but I turn my thoughts to my child-to-be; will I be a better parent than my parents were to me all those years ago?
When you carry a child or when you push a child in a pushchair, it is your hand that determines the direction they travel in. Yes, they may veer off course, there may be bumps in the road, and eventually they will walk on their own, but for at least a while it will be you – it will be me and my wife who set the direction for our child.
Will I be able to support my baby, help give the foundation that will stop him/her going off the rails, show love which will they will know is unconditional? I am so so scared that I will mess it all up; I wouldn’t wish the life I have led on anyone. In my youth I thought that having a child was the most selfish thing in the world to do – bringing someone into this world to live and die and suffer was the ultimate selfish act. Yet, we are designed to want to have children, and God created humanity aware of the suffering that would be experienced, but deciding that the suffering is worth the joy.
Lord God, let the joy outweigh the suffering, the good times outweigh the bad, help me be the father I should be, put your hand on my wife and baby, look on them with favour, not because I am a faithful servant, but in spite of who I am and the things I have done.
Yours as ever,
The Broken Man
Monday, 14 July 2008
DON'T PANIC
I had a very busy day ahead of me with a big project needing to get out the door tomorrow morning; it was going to be solid work from the moment I got in. As I stepped into my office my phone rang. My wife told me in tears that she was bleeding. I told her to keep calm, phone the maternity hospital, and that I was on my way. The journey home is 30mins. As I drove I begged God that my wife and the baby would be okay. I felt angry; God better not dare let anything happen to them...I think if you are going to try and get aggressive with someone it might as well be a being who is a lot bigger than you and owes you nothing! As I drove my prayer changed, and I asked not that my wife and baby would be okay, but that at least my wife would survive, that I couldn’t bear to lose them both.
12mins later I pulled up to find her standing outside in tears. She got in the car and we headed to the hospital. By now I was as white as her and asked her to tell me exactly what was happening...and she told me she had had some spotting. My sense of relief was incredible. When she had said bleeding, through her tears, I thought the worse. Spotting is normal. By now we were on the way to the hospital and, as we went, I tried to calm her, my driving now returning to a normal speed. When we got to the hospital she was given an examination, we listened to the baby’s heartbeat and breathed a sigh of relief. After she had calmed down a bit I dropped her home, and went back to work. By now it was 11am and I had lost a big chunk of my day. By 5pm I was frantic about the work that wasn’t going to be ready and that I was going to need to work till 7.30pm when the building is locked up. I then received a call saying the client was not collecting the manuals I was working on until Friday, so was able to sit down catch my breath and then go home.
It’s easy for me to think about the scare, the fear, the uncertainty, all the emotions that I went through, but perhaps I should be focusing instead on my healthy wife, healthy baby, and a deadline that I can now meet without killing myself.
Yours as ever,
The Broken Man
12mins later I pulled up to find her standing outside in tears. She got in the car and we headed to the hospital. By now I was as white as her and asked her to tell me exactly what was happening...and she told me she had had some spotting. My sense of relief was incredible. When she had said bleeding, through her tears, I thought the worse. Spotting is normal. By now we were on the way to the hospital and, as we went, I tried to calm her, my driving now returning to a normal speed. When we got to the hospital she was given an examination, we listened to the baby’s heartbeat and breathed a sigh of relief. After she had calmed down a bit I dropped her home, and went back to work. By now it was 11am and I had lost a big chunk of my day. By 5pm I was frantic about the work that wasn’t going to be ready and that I was going to need to work till 7.30pm when the building is locked up. I then received a call saying the client was not collecting the manuals I was working on until Friday, so was able to sit down catch my breath and then go home.
It’s easy for me to think about the scare, the fear, the uncertainty, all the emotions that I went through, but perhaps I should be focusing instead on my healthy wife, healthy baby, and a deadline that I can now meet without killing myself.
Yours as ever,
The Broken Man
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