Forced Perspective
Jack’s written his first post about being a father. He’s pretty sure you’ve read it before:
‘It’s hard to know what to post for the first time about being a dad. I really have not been able to put any of my thoughts into words yet. It’s hard to say anything at all without sounding cliche.’
And it’s true. Every father, whether he blogs or not, follows the same general script when trying to express his fatherhoodly feelings for the first time: ‘I don’t know what to say. I’m in awe. I’ve never felt such love so quickly, or so deeply. Wow.’
It’s much like our reaction to Star Wars.
Jack, staying true to form, of course tries to explain how becoming a father has altered his life. He calls it ‘forced perspective’. Which really caught my attention. Apart from ’sleep now’, the advice most often given to expecting fathers is: ‘It’ll change your life.’ Though well-meant, these are the most banal and least helpful words of wisdom for a new dad. Ironically, they’re also, perhaps, the truest.
What’s missing from that advice is how abrupt and thoroughly becoming a father changes a man’s life. It’s complete, and instantaneous. Change is most often gradual. A new job, marriage, college: life is a matter of acclimation. Life takes getting used to.
But fatherhood forces your perspective. In a moment, every aspect of your life is shifted in relation to that squirming boy, red-faced and lounging under a heating lamp. Not only the obvious, like your marriage or career, but parts of your life which have no logical business caring whether or not you have a child. An impulse to stop for coffee can turn into frenzied internal debate about bills and savings accounts. Suddenly a grande mocha is all that stands between your child and a PhD.
And how can a man be expected to convey that inner turmoil, except by saying, ‘I don’t know what to say.’
October 13th, 2006 at 7:21 am
I can appreciate this perspective. I have three, two girls and a boy. Most of my life is spent going to ball games, attending gymnastics class and buying school supplies, but I wouldn’t give it up for anything. How’s that for Banal.