Things We Need To Recognise In Fatherhood

I doubt if anyone who’s ever become a father has ever felt prepared. I heard people say things like, “Oh, your life is never going to be the same once you have kids.” But how is that helpful to a new dad? There are some facts about fatherhood that are unavoidable. One is that you just have to experience it to learn some hard lessons. Another is that we won’t learn those lessons if we aren’t honest with ourselves. Here are 3 things we need to be honest about in fatherhood.

1. We think it should be easier to raise kids.

I knew being a dad was going to be difficult, but I didn’t realize how difficult. One of the craziest facts about fatherhood is we have so much potential to bless and help our kids while carrying as much potential to curse and mess them up. We need to accept the fact that raising kids is difficult. There are going to be days we lose our minds and nights we lose our sleep, but all good dads keep parenting to the best of their abilities. They never give up and they keep loving and investing in their kids because they realize their kids are their legacy.

2. We hold unrealistic expectations for our kids’ lives.

You may have been a star athlete or a great footballer while in college and therefore have the same expectations for your son. But the reality is, he may never be an athlete nor a footballer like you as this isn’t his thing. You will therefore need to work through that and realize the problem isn’t that your son doesn’t like football or athletics but rather it was that you are holding expectations for his life that aren’t fair for him. Our kids are their own persons and we, as dads, have to hold our expectations for them loosely. They can’t become who we want and we must respect whatever careers they chose.

3. We think we have more control than we actually do.

When our kids are young, we have quite a bit of control over their lives. But we don’t have ultimate control over what decisions they’re going to make, what they’re thinking, what they say, or what they do. One of the facts about fatherhood I’m learning to grasp is that a lot of parenting is simply responding to the choices they make. A good dad can be by his kid’s side no matter what decision he or she makes. I certainly don’t have control over what my kids decide to do, but I do have control over how I respond and support them.

Peter Mugi Kuruga | Counselling Psychologist/Marriage and Family Therapist