I’ll admit that, on some level, I’ve pretty much always thought, “You know, it would be nice to have kids someday.”  That’s pretty normal, right?  Of course, you can think that for years and years, but after the joy of your wife saying, “I’m pregnant!”, reality tends to slap you upside the head like a five year old cracking open their first pinata.

Wait, though, I wanted to be a parent . . . oh yeah, but my parents were divorced before I can even remember.  Since we just saw my Dad primarily on the weekends and during the summertime, I have no idea what it means to be a dad in a marriage and taking responsibility for a kid.  Other male role models?  I had a few good ones that were just occasionally in my life (teachers, friends’ fathers), but a lot of the men I was around up to and even into high school weren’t what you’d consider stellar examples of their gender, and if married weren’t great husbands or fathers either.

So I can still be a good parent without having viewed a great Dad on a regular basis, right?  Sure!  I can start with going to those required classes for when you’re having your first baby.  OK, breathing techniques for the birth, preparing for the hospital, and–what do you mean that sometimes the baby is taking its sweet time and they have to plunger them out?  Wait, I’m supposed to be there to support my wife when she’s having the baby, but you’re telling me it’s not even necessarily going to be our doctor who delivers the baby?  Now I’m not only an inexperienced Dad, I’m a nervous Dad who’s freaked out that something is going to go wrong or we’re going to miss the birth signals and have the baby in the middle of the interstate.

And now, as our kid grows up, I know that part of being a good Dad is making sure that my wife is happy too.  That makes me a good Dad because I’m taking care of her so she can take care of the kid, and it makes me a good husband, so bonus points.  Oh, except you hear about how much things change when you have a kid, but no matter how much you think things will change you’re way underestimating the reality of it.  Because, you know, all those things that made my wife happy before will be the same things that make her happy now that there’s three of us, right?  If I knew how to type maniacal laughter here, I would do it.

In total, this means I don’t have a good view of how to be a dad from experience, I’m nervous with all the things that can go wrong during and after pregnancy (though we’re into the “after” now), and I get to relearn how to take care of my wife so that I can be a good Dad and a good husband to make a happy family.  Uh-oh.

The truth is, I’m still not sure what makes a good or great dad, or if I’ll ever find a way to be one as our kiddo goes from baby to toddler to teen and into adulthood.  Have my thoughts of, “I want kids someday” translated into, “I am glad we have a kid today”?  Absolutely.  I may be on a never-ending road of trial and error, of joys and sorrows, and be scared to death about being a parent, but through it all I love being called “Dad”.