The Best Part of Being a Dad (06-18-07)

It begins, and most likely will end, with the sound of crying. Standing in a delivery room, the shock and awe of childbirth still fresh in your mind, you hear that first, fragile cry, a sound that you will only hear then, as your son or daughter struggles to open their tiny, fluid-logged lungs with first breath. It is a sound filled with some ancient magic that instantly bonds you to your child, while at the same time filling your own fragile psyche with newborn concern. Is the baby all right? Will my child be okay?

When I think about Father’s Day and the best thing about being a dad, I cannot help but reflect on all the tears I have witnessed and all the cries I have heard. This may seem strange, but I think it is the crying that is my favorite part of parenthood. While I enjoy my children for a wealth of reasons, I take the greatest pride in my ability to quell my children’s fears, calm their anxieties, and stop their tears. To me, that is what being a father is all about, being the rock upon which waves of salt water tears may harmesslessly break until they have washed away the storm within my child’s heart.

In fact, I have not known strength, had not even known what it really meant to be strong until confronted with the terror of a child’s nightmare, or sickened by the sight of my child’s blood. It is in the terrible moments of injury or illness that have tested my paternal resolve to keep a level head and a calming demeanor. It is at moments of strife and pain and fear and doubt that a father must be at his best because it is at those times that a child really needs a strong and fearless father.

I am reminded of my own father. I was sixteen and had just learned to drive. In a moment of teenage carelessness, messing with the radio instead of paying attention to my driving, I let my parent’s car veer into a parked vehicle. The accident was very minor: no on was injured and both vehicles were easily repaired.

Yet, I felt horrible. I felt as if I was the stupidest, most reckless kid to ever get behind the wheel and I felt completely unworthy to ever drive again. In a word, I felt like crying.

But my father stepped up. He put his arm around me and told me that everything would be okay. He told a few stupid jokes to raise my spirits and told me of the accidents he had had, all in an attempt to make me see that a moment of careless stupidity did not turn me into some sort of vehicular menace. He was calm, caring, and completely understanding. I was amazed and assured by his calmness, by his restraint. He would have had every right to rip into me for my mistake, but instead he recognized my shaken confidence and became my steady guide back to solid emotional ground.

So my favorite thing about being a dad is being there for my kids. Being there to comfort them when they cry, being there to reassure them when they make mistakes, and being their strength when they are scared or weak or hurt.

It isn’t always easy, and sometimes I too lose my cool. But they have taught me how to handle myself in a crisis. They have taught me how to love more completely than I had ever known was even possible before I became a father.

Even when they cry. Especially when they cry.