IMOW - Facing Fatherhood

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Facing Fatherhood
Andru Matthews

United States

GALLERY

CONVERSATION

I know because I was seated behind the doctor watching over his shoulder as he worked the machine. He would get a nice image up on...

But my wife was beaming throughout the procedure and still smiling hours afterward. She had wanted a girl and had just learned, after some coaching from the doctor, how to identify the baby's movements. She's not only ready to be a mother, but she's also enjoying these moments of expectation for their own sake. She often stops to tell me when she feels the baby moving or to point out the things that provoke a reaction from her.

As for me, I've yet to get excited by the prospect of fatherhood, nor to develop any sort of feelings for the child my wife carries in her womb. Instead, I harbor doubts and concerns, misgivings about what fatherhood will mean and how it will affect our lives. Not only do I worry about the practical difficulties we'll face raising a child, but I also worry that failing to gush with joy at the prospect of bringing new life into the world makes me, in some indefinite way, inadequate as a father.

I remember a conversation I had with a friend and colleague a number of years ago. This man was my supervisor at work for a time and gave me my start in technology, made it possible for me to have a career in technology rather than just an IT-related job at the hospital where we worked. Although he was only a few years older than I was, he was a mentor to me, one of the few in my life. He and his wife had a precocious daughter and, soon after we met, a rambunctious son.

One day, after we'd stolen a few minutes away from the kids and could talk, he asked if I'd thought of having any children of my own. When I demurred, saying I didn't really know if I could bring a child into a world such as this one, he talked about their own decision making process. We wondered the same thing, he told me. Finally, we decided that the best thing we could do to make the world better was to raise children who could be a better world.
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