Loving Another Human into Being

Notes on Fatherhood: What's available & What's at stake

“Dada?!”

I hear this faint little voice off in the distance as I step across our leaf covered yard, making my way from my office shed into the house. I notice myself taking a nice breath in and then letting go of anything I might be holding onto with a loud, vibrating exhale, reminding me to greet my family with everything I have, and my pace picks up a bit.

Then I hear it again, louder now, as I step up onto our half-painted porch, “Dada?!!” and I can make out our littlest one, River, her little body waddling to the door with her arms wide open, ready for a big ass hug.

As I walk through our screenless door, our eyes lock and I get one more, “Dada?!” My face feels stretched to the brim with a smile that almost hurts, eyes wide open. I always soak up the way she says it, kind of like a puppy letting out little excited barks. A total mix of surprise, excitement, tenderness… so, so sweet.

My head tilts sideways in awe as we embrace, and water often flows right up behind my eyes. Her excited waddle, wide-open eyes, smile… the whole look, plus that little voice. It’s all a declaration of who I am to her, flooding me with warmth and a total softening in my body. This happens just about every time I come back into the house.

And I realize in these moments, I can see myself as she sees me.

I was everything in her little world.
I am everything in her little world… except when she’s hungry.

I know exactly who I am in those moments. There are no questions about it. I am this big, strong, safe, exciting, fun, loving, tender man that she calls Dada. I get to be that for her. And I am that.

These little moments shake me up.

Often after these moments, these embraces, I’m flooded with tears, seemingly random. It usually feels like a blend of emotions: some grief for all the times I couldn’t or didn’t see this man, swells of love for knowing I am this man, and deep gratitude for being a father to these kids, creating this family, and how it all continues to create me.

For us dad’s… I want to name what’s at stake here.

I’ve been gifted a child, by God, by life … it seems like this path is bestowed upon me. Suppose it’s a path of becoming, one of transformation, into the heart and into my potential. My kids see the best in me. They see me as this giant who can do no wrong, even when I do wrong. It feels like I’ve been given the opportunity, knighted, really, to model something sacred:

What it’s like to be loved by a man.

What it looks and feels like to be around a healthy man..

What leadership can be.

What a good man is.

And, there is something that makes us, fathers, uniquely special, at least for those of us who choose this.

Being a loving presence as a father is an active choice. It’s not required, and our culture makes that clear. If it were automatic, we wouldn’t carry father wounds across generations (or maybe there’s no way around it, but I have to believe it makes a difference). The fact that we do tells me it’s a choice. And when it’s chosen, children know - families know - communities know.

So this is no fucking joke.

We don’t need to do anything extraordinary. The further along I go on this path, it’s quite ordinary, actually. Small, micro moments built in and practiced day after day, that afford me the opportunity to show up over and over again. Continuously learning how to be human and support all these other humans that rely on you. To continue to meet the parts of me that resist love, deny gratitude, and react incongruent with what the moment is asking for, with what my kids or wife needs from me.

It’s really just learning how to be an adult. Which is hard, and so is love and so is truth. I’ve got to learn how to feel, how to regulate my nervous system, how to be embodied, how to heal reactive patterns and a wounded inner child, provide for a family in all aspects of “provide’, cultivate a healthy marriage, fight for my attention in this technological era, probably a lot more shit and build the discipline to do this day in and day out. And in doing so, something opens. It opens the door to being able to recognize what is true, and to live from that place. In that sense, becoming an adult is wildly transformational, I become more able to recognize what is true in a moment, and to live from that place, right here, in ordinary life, over and over again.

Otherwise, my emotional immaturity, relational incapacity, and unhealed trauma turn fathering into a burden, and I end up doing more harm than good. And, it sure ain’t fun.

I don’t need to choose this path. The reality is being an adult means I’ve got to really reckon with the fact that my choices have consequences.

I know this all too well… in the moments I’ve lost my shit, spun up in a storm of what would feel like uncontrollable overwhelm, chaos and rage, only to see my kids confused, their precious little faces gripped with fear. Even in writing this, recalling these moments it reminds of the practice, all the times I’ve dropped the ball, stumbled and made a mess, endless self-forgiveness resourcing me back to the truth.

Literally, I shape the future of my kids. What I model and what they experience shapes their reality. It influences who they decide to be, who they choose to love, and how they show up in the world. Pretty fucking cool … So, I won’t stop honestly asking this question … What field am I generating for my kids?

So in writing this, I think I just want to outright name what I get the opportunity to model, just a glimpse.

This is not a burden. But I get how it can feel that way. I get how hard and challenging it can be.

But truly, what a gift to be bestowed this honor. I’d argue it’s the ultimate honor given to us human folk.

To love another human into Being. It requires me to love myself into Being.

I get to show my kids how to treat themselves and others.
How to be in relationship.
How to be devoted, respectful, kind, and loving.

I get to show them how to take care of ourselves… how to thrive.

I get to let them feel like the center of the universe… special little giants, seen, loved, and held.

I get to lead from Presence, repair when I lose my cool, and model a meaningful, authentic life… rooted in vitality, values, and right relationship with life.

Or maybe just, how to live intentionally. and, I gotta go out and learn and practice all of these things along the way - which completely shift my experience of what it means to be human. not sure there will ever be a final version.

We choose our standard, there’s no right or best way - there are many ways, it’s really just a willingness to keep caring.

It’s a relational ecosystem, a wild and complex one that knocks me down again and again and continues to demand transformation, which seems to be infinite. And as I’m learning in improv class, I get to say yes, and … keep receiving the gifts … to play along with life.

It is they who inspire me to tap into my potential. It is they who keep calling me forward… to love more, and more, and more.

Grateful to be grateful, thanks for reading :)