I should better start this with a little story. Was I afraid, unsure and lost just before I became a father?
When me and my wife attended our first pre-natal class as a consequence of expecting our first child, the teacher, a hippy like middle aged woman who I don’t quite know what qualifications she had to be an ante-natal teacher, asked the women and the men to sit separate at different ends of the room. While she was trying something like meditation with the women by softly whispering to them to imagine warm sunny beaches and crystal sea waters, some sort of amateurish group hypnosis attempt, the men were asked to take it in turns and talk to the other men about their fears of becoming fathers. A much more serious endeavour, I thought.
I don’t remember what the other men were talking about. Only vaguely I remember that what they found important and worrying I thought it was trivial and even non-existent. I remember that when my turn came I said that my greatest fear was that I don’t quite know whether I’ll be able to be a good father. It did raise a few eyebrows. Had no idea why. I didn’t even quite register that reaction at the time, only now, in hindsight. My wife then, at the end, on our way home told me off for saying such a thing. I was maybe naively honest and out with it. I now know that at the time I hadn’t yet discovered the greatest of all virtues and the greatest of privileges, that of being honest with oneself and not having to tell anybody about it. Now I’d probably lie, say something meaningless, something that my audience would like to hear. Is that sort of fear real? Yes it is! I think that most of us, responsible people feel it and it stays with us I don’t know how long. I still have it.
Someone said to me numerous times that you become responsible for those you love. Forgive me for not giving quotations and reference, they’re a waste of time anyway. Yes, once a man embraces responsibility as a virtue, parental love and parental responsibility become intertwined. As a man, even now I have that fear of being a good father to my children. It’s not a debilitating fear. It is a good fear, it energises me and allows me to listen to my children and judge and act on my judgement.