Raising Them, Raising Me

Nobody warns you about the transformation. They tell you about the sleepless nights. They tell you to stock up on nappies and to sleep while you can. But nobody sits you down and says: the man who walks into that room will not be the same man who walks out.

The moment I held my child for the first time, I was overwhelmed. Not just with love, I had expected love. What I had not expected was the fear that arrived alongside it. A quiet, relentless fear. Not of failing as a provider. Not of the sleepless nights ahead. But the fear of a man who suddenly understands that something exists in this world that he would do anything to protect.

A new version of me was being born alongside this child.

The early weeks were humbling in ways I cannot fully explain. There were nights I lay awake listening to cries I could not decode, frustration rising because I could not communicate, could not figure out what was needed. I looked in the mirror some mornings and barely recognised the man staring back heavy-eyed, unshaven, running on whatever broken sleep the night had offered.

But then my baby would look at me. Not a glance. A real, searching look. As if studying my face, memorising it. And in that moment, every ounce of tiredness dissolved into something I cannot name. Something quieter than joy, but deeper than it.

The elders in my family have been a guiding light through all of this. They reminded us that feeding must be done carefully, that there are proper positions, that warmth and cleanliness are not small things. In many African traditions, the baby’s hair is never cut in those first weeks it grows untouched, sacred, until the naming ceremony, when it is finally cut and placed in the homestead or in a special tree trunk, depending on family tradition. I used to observe these things from a distance. Now I understand their weight.

I watched my mother hold my child the way she once held me with a confidence that seemed almost effortless, her hands knowing exactly what to do. And I realised I was not just watching a grandmother care for a grandchild. I was watching a tradition being kept alive.
My father never said much about fatherhood. He was a man of action always there, always steady, like a tree with roots grown deep over many years. I used to think silence was simply his nature. Now I wonder if some things are just too large for language. Maybe he once looked at me the way I look at my child now, and found that words were simply not enough.
That is what nobody tells you about becoming a parent. It is not the love that surprises you, you expected to love them. What surprises you is how that love reshapes everything. The way you see time. The way you see your own parents. The way you suddenly understand sacrifices that were made for you long before you were old enough to appreciate them.

There is still so much ahead. First steps. First words. First heartbreaks I will have no power to prevent. And one day, the naming ceremony when the hair that has been growing untouched will finally be cut, and my child will be formally welcomed into the family, into the community, into a lineage that stretches back further than any of us can fully trace.

But for now, I am learning to be present. To resist the urge to rush through the difficult moments, and to not take for granted the quiet ones.
Because someone wiser than me once said that children do not stay small for long.

I am already beginning to understand exactly what they meant.

—

This post was previously published on medium.com.