His name is Daniel Erik. He'll be three years-old in March, and I barely know him.
I don't know his favorite color or his favorite toy. I don't even know what his bedroom looks like or if anyone reads to him at night before he goes to sleep.
And he is not sure whether to call me Devin, or "Daddy".
Had you told me that this is what our lives would be like when I got the news that my wife was pregnant, I would've said no way. Not a chance.
That was the relationship I had with my father. It's not what's going to happen with me. I won't let it. I'm better than that.
Turns out I was wrong, because I lost my chance to be that type of dad the day after Daniel was born. It's an unpleasant fact, but it's a fact nonetheless.
I grew up without a father figure. My dad walked out of my life when I was just a few years older than my son is now and his first replacement couldn't have been any worse if he'd tried. As a kid, I remember telling myself that when I got to be their age and I had a child of my own, I'd do everything in my power to make sure that they didn't have to deal with any of what I went through. That I would be there all the time, be supportive, encouraging, disciplined and give them the things they needed from me.
I thought that would be enough. I really did. I figured if I tried hard enough to not repeat the same mistakes my dad made, that I'd get it right. It's a big reason why I've never smoked or taken any drugs and it's the major reason why I am as careful as I am when it comes to alcohol. My father and stepfather both had their own issues when it came to drinking and it just became a simple matter of common sense for me to realize that addictive behavior carries over from parents to kids.
What nobody may have realized, myself included, was the amount of pressure I put on myself to outdo my own parents and show them I could get it right where they didn't. My mother gave up and shipped me off to my dad when I was 12, at a time when I was an absolute mess. My dad and I were more roommates than a father/son dynamic and when I graduated high school at 18, he was gone again.
"You're a man now," he said. "Time to take care of yourself."
Some people can rise to that challenge. I ended up falling more than a bit short. At least, for a good while.
When we were going through all the parenting classes and the great circus that planning for a child is these days, I came to a rather frightening realization.
Everything about the process is designed to reinforce the mother and her relationship with the baby, while the assumption is that the fathers just instinctively know what to do.
Now, I get why that is. I really do. My wife was carrying Daniel. She was dealing with the physical and emotional stress which comes with it, and as a man, I have no possible way of understanding how hard that process can be. I. Get. It.
BUT, that doesn't mean expecting fathers know everything out the gate either. Just because I knew what I didn't want to be as a dad to my son meant I knew the best way to handle everything or that my fears would just dissipate when we got the lil' tyke home and started a family.
I was terrified. I was so sure that if I didn't get everything EXACTLY right, according my need to be an absolute perfectionist, that I would be a complete and utter failure as a parent. That all the years I told myself that I had to surpass my mother and father had been a waste of time. But nobody knew that, because at the time, nobody asked me how I was doing. Not my wife, her family, our doctors, counselors, no one. There seemed to be this unspoken understanding that I'd just be able to handle it all because there was no possible way I would mess up like that.
...Then I did. Badly. After helping deliver Daniel at the hospital and they put him in my hand, the breakdown process started. The next night, it exploded out of me for four hours, and it kept going even after I came home and found my apartment half-empty and the divorce papers arrived.
I broke. The pressure became too much and I let it get to me. It is disingenuous for me to say otherwise and not take responsibility for that.
Even admitting it makes me so angry because in the back of my mind I continue to try and justify why this shouldn't have happened in the first place. There were so many things I should've done differently. I should've been strong enough to handle it. I shouldn't have cracked like I did because my son needed me then and whether his mother and her family want to acknowledge it or not, he's always going to.
Since then, a lot of my friends have gone on to have their own children and as happy as I am for them, I only impart one piece of advice.
"The next few months are going to be all about you, and rightly so. You're doing the heavy lifting and everyone is going to do what they can to help make it as easy as possible. What you need to do is take at least five good minutes of every day and ask your significant other how he is doing, and listen to what he tells you. Really listen to it, because he might be having more trouble than you think."
I have no idea, at this point, if Daniel and I will ever have the sort of relationship I'd always wanted us to have. Since my only time I can see him is at his grandparents' house under their watch, I'm extremely limited in what we can do together to begin with.
All I wanted to be was a good parent. I wanted to get it right. I truly had no idea I could get it so wrong, and I hope someday, when he's old enough to understand, my son can forgive me for that.
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