Q My partner is six months pregnant, so obviously I’m about to become a dad. Just recently I’ve started feeling really anxious about it, my father wasn’t around much and we don’t have much
Kyle MacDonald: I’m feeling anxious about becoming a father
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Becoming a parent is often the biggest thing that happens in someone’s life. Photo / Getty Images
Our first map for what being a parent is comes from our own experience of being parented, and it sounds like when it comes to fathering, that wasn’t great for you. At the very least you don’t have much of a map, and it can be understandable if you’re now facing feelings about that. You may need to grieve for what you didn’t have.
But the wonderful thing about parenting is you get the opportunity to make amends with your childhood. You get to use your own painful experiences to guide you towards a deeply satisfying connection with your little person.
You get to be the dad you never had.
Sometimes absences in our childhood can make being present hard. It can feel wrong, difficult or upsetting to do what we didn’t get. However, being present is what your focus needs to be. Not just because it’s a good thing generally, but specifically for you it undoes what wasn’t done.
And by present, I mean emotionally present. Build a connection with your baby from when you meet them. Be open, cry, laugh be worried about them. Feel openly and without fear.
Because people will tell you it’s the hardest thing you’ll ever do, and occasionally you’ll see stories in the media declaring that people without children are happier than parents. I’m sure some are, and people need to do what’s right for them.
However, in my experience, having children opened up a new part of my heart that I didn’t even know existed. That comes with all the feelings, including feeling like there are a million more things to be worried about all of a sudden. That’s natural.
In fact, even though it’s hard, it makes you feel life more. It’s a shame your father, for whatever reason, hasn’t been able to map that terrain. It’s wonderful you now get to. And he gets to be a grandparent, in whatever form that takes.
The only standards you have to hold yourself to though, despite what anyone - including me - says, is the one I hold all parents to: do a better job than your parents did. Improve on their efforts.
And enjoy the ride.