Some people marry and plan for parenthood. For others, it just happens. In either case, they never really feel prepared when the news arrives that they are going to have a baby. When they are faced with the news, both mother and father greet it with a mixture of joy and terror.
Throughout the pregnancy, the mother at least has a distinct knowledge of what’s happening, because it’s happening inside her. The soon-to-be dad, no matter how well informed he is, gets all his information second hand. His biggest concern, at least at first, is how he is going to be able to provide for the new baby.
While most parents of both sexes feel a warm glow of anticipation about the impending arrival, that is occasionally overshadowed by a feeling of dread. The mother can’t imagine living through the pain of giving birth. The father has trouble facing a lifetime of responsibility.
Most of us do what we have to do and start preparing for the new arrival. Even though we won’t need it for ages, we go to the baby store and look at baby cribs and other eventual baby necessities. If we’ve been happily cruising along in our jobs, we realize we need to consider a career.
Right from the beginning, we start to give up some things we want in favor of the baby’s needs. The mother who has had her eye on a new bedding collection for her bedroom agrees that the money would be better spent on a crib. The baby becomes the first priority.
That’s not to say that the father doesn’t resent being able to buy that husqvarna chainsaw he’s had his heart set on. Usually, though, he graciously puts it on hold in favor of more practical concerns. He can always borrow his neighbor’s saw if he really needs it. That’s what neighbors are for, after all.
Babies are not real to fathers until they are born. Before that, they just have happy fantasies about kicking a ball around the backyard with their son or walking hand in hand with their pig-tailed daughter. The fact that babies are helpless little creatures who don’t think twice about waking you up at night or peeing on your good pants when they’re sitting on your lap is only a distant concept until it actually happens. Fathers aren’t the ones who feel the baby growing inside, so thinking of it as an infant doesn’t really come naturally to them.
Just as a mother doesn’t have to think about feeding the baby who is growing inside her, since that happens automatically, neither does the father really have to think about how he is going to fulfill his role. It just happens. You do what you have to do and as the billions of babies who have managed to survive until adulthood can testify, we parents usually do alright.