What Dad Feels Like

Whether you have children now or not, at some point in life we all don’t know what it’s like to have kids. I guarantee, at some point before spending your out-to-dinner money on diapers someone said “you just don’t understand until you’ve had one of your own.” I would even go so far as to say the women at my son’s daycare that don’t have children of their own can’t fully understand (and they are constantly surrounded by poop and tantrums). People (including myself) often rant about how great becoming a parent is, along with how children change your life. Anyone without children try to imagine what having a kid would be like. For any parents reading this remember what your life was like before children. If you haven’t experienced it, you simply don’t know.

Prior to my son being born, I thought I had a pretty good idea about what life with a child would be like. While you can imagine having kids will be great, you also know there’s a lot of work involved. For me, the realization came during a moment at the hospital and I knew just how different my life was going to be. Any parent reading this knows what I’m talking about. We’re not only talking about not sleeping for months and having to be at a newborn’s beck and call. This is more like jumping out of an airplane and your inner self screams “holy shit.” Skydiving is an amazing experience, but it doesn’t compare to the feeling of holding your newborn baby in your arms for the first time.