1 Apr 2009

The Father I Want To Be - First Year

A month ago I sent out a tweet asking for topics to write about here, and my good friend Nathan Verrill (twitter) suggested the following.

Blog Request 2

So here we go:

My son is going to born in roughly 3 months and there is so much going through my head on how my life is about to change. The fact that we are going to have a son was a relief for me, I just don’t feel like I am ready to have a daughter yet. People tell me that raising a boy or a girl is fundamentally the same, but I call bullshit. Raising a girl requires more emotional maturity than raising a boy in my opinion, which I simply don’t have at this stage in my life.

Questions like what type of father I want to be, what lessons do I want to make sure I teach my child, and how will I find the right balance between providing for my family and spending time with my family keep coming up in my mind. These are not easy to answer, and a real ‘answer’ doesn’t exist. The best thing would be to use these questions as checkpoints throughout this adventure that is parenting. If ever I am not happy with the answers that I give, I will know it is time to try something new.

For the first year of my child’s life I just want to soak everything in and help my wife out as much as I can. The two goals I have set are to attempt to teach my son how to entertain himself and some semblance of independence. I know it sounds harsh to want an infant to be independent, but I don’t really expect him to be walking around warming up his own bottle. However, having a sense of self-relience even at a young age will go a long way as my son grows up. I know this next year and three months is going to be quite a trip, and it will be interesting to see what my Year Two post will have to say.

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1 Mar 2009

Searching for My Child's Name

At Christmas my in-laws gave me the following book to help my wife and I search for the name for our unborn child.

50001 Best Baby Names

The first challenge was where the hell to do I start? The best course of action was straight brute force in the end. My wife and I each picked a colored highlighter and in our free time we are going through the book front to back highlighting anything that sticks out.  I took the approach that Malcolm Gladwell discusses in his book ‘Blink’ of going with my gut reaction. As I skimmed over the thousands of names, I trusted my ‘gut’ reaction. During my search two things happened which I wasn’t expecting.

The names I picked for a boy in general had ancient roots, and deep meaning. I have a hard time convincing my wife and family with some of the possibilities due to certain ethnic groups having a ‘claim’ to it. On the other hand, many of the names I chose for a girl were historic, but generally common.

Many of the names I chose, both for a boy or a girl, could make the child an easy target once they start to socialize with other children. My philosophy is that no matter what, kids will find a way to turn a name into a put down. I don’t want the possibility of simple name calling to restrict the options we have when it comes to naming our child.

As it stands now, I have made it all the way through the book and picked out all the names that just ‘felt’ right. My wife is almost through the boys section, and should have the girls done sometime next week. Once we have picked out our choices, I plan on pulling out all of the highlighted names and saving it in a digital manner. Coming to a final choice will be the true challenge though. I have been thinking that the best way would be to whittle the listing down to a meaningful set, and just wait until that beautiful day our child’s comes into the world. It is my hope that on that day, upon looking at my child’s face a name will naturally be chosen.

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