This father’s story about holding his newborn son is about more than just good parenting.
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Fear is one of the most natural emotions–regardless of whether you’re a man, woman or child. It’s primitive yet sophisticated, based on the seemingly endless ways humanity experiences it. In the process, however, it can bring a newness no one ever felt before–except maybe, you.
The man in the video above, named Art, describes himself “a horrible father” upon holding his newborn son for the first time. There’s a calm, almost sad quality to his tone. According to Upworthy.com, he indicated to a nurse in the delivery room at the time of his son’s birth that he had “never held a child” before and didn’t know what to do. The nurse replied, “Well, he doesn’t know that.”
Art then looked into his son’s eyes–and for a moment, it soothed his anxious hands and fearful soul. Still, he felt like he couldn’t do anything right.
“I must’ve missed that day in school when they gave us the lessons about how to actually be a decent parent,” Art explains in the video. “When I was growing up, my dad was focused primarily on bringing home a nice paycheck and taking me and my sister to a basketball game every once in a while. To me, he was a good dad—but that wouldn’t cut it now. In today’s world, dads have to make money, know how to braid hair, make healthy meals, and be amazing caregivers. It doesn’t help that whenever I access social media, I see these great dads who can do it all. It can be completely overwhelming at times, and I often wonder if I’m cut out for it.”
However, Art awoke to find his son lying in a pool of his own vomit late one night. Scared and shaken, he picked him up, cleaned him and put him back in his crib. When his did, his son had a look in his eyes that made him utterly uncomfortable. He called his father the next morning–who, judging by Art’s tone in this video, got lost somewhere along the path of fatherhood–and asked him, “Dad, you really had no idea what you were doing, did you?”–in reference to raising him.
“No, of course not,” his dad answered. “Nobody knows what they’re doing. You just do the next thing.”
Towards the end of the video, Art says he always thought his father was “the guy”, and how he’d been a good dad. Art thought back to cleaning his own son up after he got sick, and realized he did do the right thing after thinking he’d done wrong.
I’m not a parent, but I know this fear–the fear of becoming someone you don’t want to be. Someone who you’ve seen mess up in life and had to act as a springboard for their missteps or mistakes. Thus making the same mistakes they’ve made.
I think it’s a fear any normal human being harbors somewhere onside. The question is: What do you do with it?
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Photo Credit: aclark71/Flickr
You always post the deepest and most interesting articles there Ms Kelly.
Awareness can be a curse, but it can also be a gift…depending how we take it.
Thank you for this one.