A Father’s Pride: What Could Be More Obnoxious?

After Maggie was born Linda, Maggie, and I spent most of the next few weeks sleeping. You can see where the phrase “sleeping like a baby” comes from. They do it a lot and they do it deeply enough to make you gaze at them in wonder and more than a little bit of envy. It’s the waking up every couple of hours part that’s difficult and blows the colloquialism out of the water.

Luckily Linda and I already had a schedule well suited to new parenthood. She was used to crashing early and getting up early, and I was used to staying up late to work and waking up somewhere just south of noon. Maggie kept her own schedule, which mainly consisted of getting up whenever she darn well pleased.

Everybody told me that you couldn’t prepare for parenthood, much less fatherhood. You couldn’t prepare for the tremendous impact it has on your life. They gave me books, pamphlets, and more. Female relatives told me I’d never bond with my child the same way as my wife would and one even opined that the father was useless for the first three months. Useless. It gave me a new appreciation of sexism, to be told such a thing.

After Maggie arrived you had to use a crowbar to get my hands off her. Even her mother had a difficult time. And when I wasn’t holding her, talking to her, singing to her, and rocking her, I was photographing her and taking videos. People told me I’d love her in a way I’d never experienced before, and I believed them, but the love I felt, still feel, for my daughter is still overwhelming. She is my heart. But I was mature and self-aware enough to expect this. The love didn’t come as a surprise. The surprise was the pride.

I’ve never been a prideful person. I don’t usually brag, I tend to self-deprecate and downplay my accomplishments in conversation:

People: “You’re a writer? You write for a living? That’s how you support your family?”
Me: “Yeah, … but its just video games.”
People: “But you write children’s books?”
Me: Yeah… but they’re not published yet.”

I don’t really like being the center of attention. I don’t even like Birthday parties for myself (that’s why I wanted Maggie to be born on my birthday.) But I learned pride when Maggie arrived. I delighted in how people looked at her. I lived for every comment about how cute, happy, beautiful, smart, and perfect she was. I loved going to family functions and basking in the familial light radiating from my child. I loved going out in public and having grandmas, grandpas, and pretty young girls wink at and remark upon my daughter.

I was prepared for the love. I was ready for that. But the pride came and smacked me on top of the head with a sack of bricks. I was smitten with my little girl and I expected other people to be just as smitten. To this day, nothing bothers me more than when my daughter says hello to some stranger and they ignore her.

How dare they?

She’s the most beautiful girl in the world.

I don’t trust these kinds of people.

At the same time I delight in her every accomplishment. Her first smile, her first laugh, when she sat upright, crawled, walked, and began to speak. These were all my accomplishments too and every compliment, every achievement pleased me to a greater degree than any byline, than any published article or book, than any paycheck, or reader mail.

Yes, pride. It took me completely by surprise and probably makes me obnoxious in the eyes of some people. Yeah, I admit it; I’ve got a problem. But if you think I’m bad… you should see her Grandpa.

Note: This column is a reprint. Maggie is now 8 years old. The pride is remains, and has grown, of course.

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