Fatherhood

Sleepless nights, tantrums, and strange coloured pooh. These are just some of the side effects of being told you’re going to be a father. The fundamental fact of things is that we men, by our very nature, aren’t built for this. We are built like a B52 squadron. Deliver the package and get the hell outta there. Women, on the other hand, have a natural instinct to have kids by the time they hit puberty. A lot of girls in my school needed no further encouragement.

Society has drilled into us what a stable family looks like. We’ve all seen The Waltons. Although, how many sodding kids do you need. I know it was set in the 30s before the ‘ribbed for her pleasure’ prophylactics but I’m sure the Dad could of put a sock on it? Any hoot, back to my point. The image of this family life is a portrayal and it isn’t natural, so for us men, it takes a lot for us to fight off the urge to get the hell out of dodge. It’s pathetic and don’t you think we know this. We’d never envisioned it to be like this. We had it all planned. The platinum albums, the World Cup winner’s medal, and the Nobel prizes. By accepting fatherhood, it’s like you’re accepting defeat the dream is OFFICIALLY over.

So 3 months or so back Hannah tells me the news! Still a shock at the best of times let alone on day one of a ‘month off the booze’. For some reason, my logic assumed it would take a lot longer. Hannah had been on the pill since she was 17 so to conceive within 3 months was a shock. It all seemed surreal until our first scan. It left me breathless. There was our little dude/dudette. It hit me for 6. Time to man up Len! We cleared the spare room (nursery) which involved boxing up my songbooks, guitars, and football memorabilia. No bitterness just a slight sadness that I hadn’t seen through these hobbies to their fullness. I hope that one day I’ll open up these boxes and have someone to share these past times with. So a new chapter in this saga I call life. As one door closes another opens and all that jazz. I get the butterfly feeling of excitement when I think about what’s behind door number 1.