Sometimes I actually do think about becoming a father in terms unrelated to undercooked pop-culture gags. (No, really, I do.)<\/p>\n
Back in university student days I had some jeans that were covered in graffiti; my “word jeans” I called ’em.<\/p>\n
One phrase was: “Strive to die to self”, which I think I lifted from a Christian-oriented poem by NZ writer Joy Cowley. It carried a secular meaning for me, about the need to make ourselves the least important part of our world; to direct our energies outwards, not inwards. I have a more nuanced position now when it comes to “selfishness”, but I still think those are mighty good words to live by. <\/p>\n
Also on those word jeans was a quote from Jung: “A man who has not passed through the inferno of his passions has never overcome them.” (I think I deliberately mangled it so it read “Until you have passed through the inferno of your passions…”) It was intended to be a provocative statement to myself, but I will never forget how my mother pointed at it and said “you won’t understand that fully until you’ve had children”. At the time I expect I rolled my eyes and thought “how silly, that’s not what Jung was talking about” (even though what I meant by it was equally Jung-inappropriate). But it stuck with me, those words of my mother’s, because it suggested that parenthood is a powerful experience in a way that I didn’t understand then. (Foolish callow youth, etc etc.)<\/p>\n
In all seriousness, I’m looking forward to being a dad. I surprise myself with how much it feels like a sensible step forward. It’s a new selfhood to encompass, but morgue-as-dad is not an unfamiliar concept to me. In fact for the last fifteen years I’ve regularly thought about an alternative life in which I was a father. That wouldn’t have been a bad sort of life, I came to realize. I could be a dad. I could be a really good dad.<\/p>\n
Yeah, the surrender of control and autonomy, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel a bit unnerved by that. Being a dad and caregiver is going to mean handing control of my world over to the little one. That’s going to be a huge change and a huge challenge, but y’know, I’m looking forward to it. I think I’m good for the challenge and I’m certain the rewards will be profound.<\/p>\n
So I guess I’m hoping to split the difference of those two quotes. There will be a lot of dying to self; there will be some passion inferno. There will be sleepless nights and really early mornings. (Every time I sleep in I wonder if I’m being smart, because I’m doing it while I still can, or foolish, because I’m not getting myself ready for what is coming.) There will be plenty of other challenges besides.<\/p>\n
And overall, sitting here, four-and-half months out? It feels like a privilege.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sometimes I actually do think about becoming a father in terms unrelated to undercooked pop-culture gags. (No, really, I do.) Back in university student days I had some jeans that were covered in graffiti; my “word jeans” I called ’em. One phrase was: “Strive to die to self”, which I think I lifted from a … Continue reading Impending Fatherhood<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[75],"class_list":["post-1661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-self-ish","tag-parenting"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8D9ZE-qN","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1661"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2846,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1661\/revisions\/2846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}