Worries

I can't wait for my son to be born. He's been around for nearly nine months but I've never met him, just spoken to him through an inch thick wall. That's a long time to know someone but never meet them. I know him, though. He's funny, the way he seems to respond to certain things I say or certain songs he hears. He's lazy, judging by his slightly-slower-than-average heartbeat and his lax attitude to generally moving around in his mother's womb. He's trouble, giving his mother and I multiple scares during the course of this pregnancy.

And I love him. I've never met him and I love him with all my heart, because I know he's my son. He's going to be respectful and polite and hard working, and he'll look after his younger siblings when they come along, and his family will always be important to him, no matter where he goes or what he does. I know this because he's my son.

But I worry. I worry that I am not going to be important.

Let me explain. My mum and dad split up when I was quite young. We would go over every weekend to see him, but when I think about the type of father I want to be, it's not what he was like. He would take us to McDonald's every Sunday morning for a Happy Meal and we'd sit there, happy enough, but I think back and realise that we were sat there amongst all the other dads who were treating their children to a McDonald's on the last day they had them, until the next weekend, when the mums would drop their children off. I don't want to be a McDonald's dad. I want to cook for my son, my children.

We never did much over at my dad's house. Sat and watched TV, mostly. Of course, there's nothing wrong with sitting with your children watching TV, but now it feels as though he never tried. He only saw my sister and me for two nights a week, and we spent most of that time doing nothing. When I got older and started becoming a teenager, he didn't seem to know how to react to me. When my mum would drive by to pick us up I'd go to him for a hug, but he couldn't give me that. It was always some awkward 'man hug' with a weird pat on the back, as if to say, "You're nearly a man now, Kael. No hugs from now on." All I wanted was a hug from my dad. It's as if he didn't really know me.

We don't see him anymore. My sister and I, for reasons I don't need to go into (needless to say, it wasn't because he fed us McDonald's), decided that we no longer wanted contact with him. He tried, for a bit. Christmas and birthday cards with his mobile number scratched inside in his scrawl, but there never felt like there was any effort. I've always thought that if my children cut me off, I'd fight tooth and nail to find out why, and when i know why I'd do everything I could to fix it.

My mum's partner has been around for a long time. Since I was small, again. But he's never been a father. He's never tried, nor have I wanted him to be. He's been everything he needed to be, and I thank him for not trying to replace my dad. I only have, and will only ever have one father. I'll give him that, regardless of what he did.

So, essentially, I grew up without a real father figure. The biggest male role model in my life was my grandfather. I aspire to be like him, the way he was with him family, his wife, his children and grandchildren. But aside from him, my ideas of what I want to be like as a father are conjured from my mind alone. And I'm really worried that it won't be enough.

I'm a person who makes mistakes. I'm forgetful, I'm clumsy and I often do the wrong thing by accident. I'm petrified that these elements of my person will carry over into my fatherhood. My wife is carrying our son. He and her have been two persons joined as one since he first came into existence, and even after he is born, her milk will feed him for months. She is the most important person to him in the entire world, and will be for the rest of his life. I've stressed in my first post how important mothers are, and rightfully so. Mother's milk is a phrase for a reason. It's not, 'Daddy's hug'. I just worry that no matter what I do, I will never be an important person to him. And I need to be. The little heart that is beating inside my wife's belly is the most important sound in my life, and I want to be there every step of the way.

I don't know why I worry, but I do. It may be a combination of the things listed above, it may not, but there is a deep seeded fear inside me that he will never look at me in the way that I want him to. He'll never think overly fondly of me as he grows up. He'll never make his own blog about impending fatherhood and explain to his readers about how he wants to be a father just like his dad was and is.

I'm writing this, a rather personal look into how I worry, because I hope that any people who feel the same may know that they're not alone. It's not a cry for sympathy, and I am damn well not going to ever let this fear consume me, especially when he comes along, but it feels like it's something I need to get out, because then it'll feel like I'm not alone in feeling it.

So. Maybe this is how many new dads feel. Maybe even new mums. It may be because my dad was not how I'd want to be. It may be because I didn't have a proper father figure growing up. It may be because I make mistakes and I'm scared they'll carry over into being a father.

But whatever it is, I'm going to make sure that I do everything I can to be the best father my son will ever have, and I'll never stop trying. Not ever.

Kael.