An Interlude on Instincts

You hear a lot about "instincts" when you are becoming a new father. The general consensus goes something like this: 

"Mothers, they start to feel that connection with the baby as soon as they can feel her kicking and growing inside them. Fathers though, they have trouble connecting with an unborn child. Once they see her and hear her cry though, then those instincts kick in and the bonding is instantaneous."

So, laboring under those assumptions while Adair was pregnant, I mostly felt like it was essentially my job to just wait. Let nature take its course, and I would be a bona fide father soon.  Occasionally I would get to feel her kick or squirm around inside Adair's tummy, which was a feeling I absolutely adored; but when people would ask me how I was feeling, he truth was, I didn't really know. My stock answer was "excited," which was true. I was super excited to be starting this next chapter in our lives. As for being excited to have an actual daughter though? A third teammate to add to this duo that Adair and I had worked on and perfected over the last decade, and then some? How could I have any idea? I had never done it before.

Then there was the matter of my own Dad, who throughout the pregnancy had cautioned me to not feel too bad if I didn't feel an instantaneous connection with my child as soon as she was born. He honestly and kindly told me that he, a man who I consider to be an incredible father, definitely didn't feel much of a connection with me or my brother when we were born. He loved us, to be sure, but he wasn't sure that he actually liked us until we started to see him, respond to him, laugh with him, and call him Daddy.

At the time, I actually wrote a lot of this wisdom off. I actually gave him some shit, based on the fact that even as recently as 30 years ago, early fatherhood was a pretty different animal. My dad had to go back to work the same week that I was born; whereas I am lucky enough to spend three weeks home with my baby girl (still not enough, though). Of course you didn't feel much of a connection with us, I said, you weren't able to be around all the time. Your poor wife had to sit at home and stare at the walls while we cried and ate; and you were out making money so we could keep the heat on. Don't try to tell me how this is going to feel, old man.

Anyway, long story short, he was totally right.

First, let me say this. I love the absolute shit out of my baby girl. As I have mentioned before, I have no interest in babies, at all, until they turn about 9 or 10 and we can talk about Pokemon. However, my daughter is the cutest damn thing I have ever seen, and I could spend hours and hours just watching the idiot faces and little gila monster sounds she makes. I wept the first time I heard her cry, I wept the first time she heard one of our favorite songs and stopped screaming to just listen, and sometimes I wake up out of a dead sleep just to go look at her without my glasses on in total darkness. But. Thus far, 13 days into her life, she has given me precious little that would indicate that I like her, even a little bit, as a person. I know, the poor little thing can't even smile yet, and here I am acting like she is being withholding or distant on purpose. But I'm not bitter, I'm not even impatient, I just am so excited for those times just around the corner where we can look at books together, listen to music together, and laugh together. Until then though, my job is to soothe her when she is screaming, change her dirty diapers, and essentially just bide time until Mama takes her to feed again. It's not glamorous. It's not all that fun. But it's my entire life right now, and I swear to you, I fuckin' love it. When she calls me Papa for the first time though, it's going to be that much better.

So I guess the moral of the story is that instincts aren't some magical wave that will sweep over you as soon as you see your little peanut emerge into this world. In my tiny, infinitesimal experience, bonding with your child is a little bit like meeting a new person and just knowing that, someday, you aren't sure when, you two are going to be best friends. Just be patient, I guess.