Mike Ang became inspired by a singular parenting moment and wanted to leave a legacy for his daughter that said “a daddy’s love lasts forever.” So he wrote a book.
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I just wrote a book inspired by my two-year old daughter (www.lovedaddythebook.com). Like the many fathers on the Good Men Project site, I am in constant awe of the amazing feeling being a daddy, and I wrote this book to try and capture the hope, frustration, happiness, and love that we fathers all share with our children and also as a BIG thank you to our parents for giving all of their love to us so unselfishly. I believe that we first learn how to love from the examples that our parents set for us. As we grow older, we start to lose sight of this most important of relationships. Only now, as parents, do we realize the sacrifices our parents made and how we hope and pray that our children will love us forever and remember the love that we gave to them. After all, we really only have our children to ourselves for a very short period of time, and every minute is precious.
I became a father almost two and half years ago, and these have been the most wonderful and fulfilling in my life. Nothing in life quite prepares you for being a parent, and there is really nothing that compares. I come from a very large family in the Philippines, where I have over 15 aunts and uncles and over 30 first cousins! Family has always been a very significant influence in my life, and when my wife (a middle school science and math teacher at the local Catholic school) and I decided to have our first child, we knew that we were entering the most significant period of our lives, a period where we would have to give up a LOT of personal time and focus on giving everything we could to our new “Mini Us.” We agreed that having a child means giving him or her nothing less. Being a parent has definitely taken a lot of sacrifice on both of our parts, as both of our families are in California, and we are living in the New York area now with no relatives to help (yikes!). Between the diaper changes, food fights, trying to stop doodles from getting on the wall, reading books (picking books up off the floor), and the general realization that “we are not so young anymore,” I can honestly say there has never been a dull moment in the past two years. But I really wouldn’t have it any other way.
I developed the idea for writing a book when I realized that time is flying by. I can’t believe that my daughter is walking (actually running is more like it) and talking a mile a minute. It seemed like just yesterday when my wife and I brought her home from the hospital and were taking turns feeding her and trying to get more than two hours of sleep in a row. I distinctly remember one very late night. It was my turn to get up, so I made my daughter’s bottle and started feeding her. We were alone and all I could hear was her breathing and the adorable squeak and hum of the bottle as she drank her milk. I was sitting in the rocking chair, soaking in this most quintessential of “daddy-daughter” moments, when I started thinking about how fleeting time is and how this moment would soon be gone. I thought of the future and could suddenly see my daughter going to school, graduating, getting her first job, even (gulp) getting married! I thought of how much I love her and how I would never stop, no matter what. I thought of how much I want to be there for her through everything and how I want her to feel that she could rely and depend on me for always. After I rocked her to sleep and put her back in her bassinet for the night, I started jotting down the first lines of what would eventually become “Love, Daddy.”
For you daddies (and even mommies) out there, this book carries with it the message of hope that the love you give your children will be appreciated and remembered and that all that comes with being a parent (the good and the bad) is really worth it. For daughters, I hope it serves as a reminder that a daddy’s love is forever and that your daddies will always love you no matter what! Although this book is about love for a daddy for his daughter, the universal message of love is appropriate for all parents to read to their children, all “children at heart,” and for fans of children’s books in general.
It would be a great honor if you would visit the website for my book and also the ongoing Kickstarter campaign, which has only a few days left (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lovedaddythebook/love-daddy-a-childrens-book).