Letting Go

When my wife and I had our first son, I honestly couldn’t envision what life would look like. I was covering basketball, working full time, coaching and playing soccer and spending lots of one-on-one time with my wife. I was 21, just married and living in a newly-purchased house. I’d grown up early and I assumed having a kid would come easy, just like most everything else in my life.

But when that baby is born and thereafter, your world is completely changed. That first feeling of holding a little human that you had a part in creating is one of the greatest moments in life. All these emotions from tears to smiles to scared and unprepared, creep up within the first hour of your baby being born.

Being a first-time father is like becoming an actor with no acting experience. You see how other fathers act and what they do, but when you are actually in it, you realize you don’t know anything. My wife, a school teacher, was a natural. I, on the other hand, wasn’t. I was learning on the fly trying to change diapers and soothe a crying baby. It was hard, but it was also the most rewarding part of my life. Everything was a new and interesting challenge.

So much of being a good parent to a young child is understanding the importance of maintaining your energy. As men, we’re solvers and fixers, so when you can’t solve or correct something, it’s like a crazy math problem you can’t answer. It becomes all-consuming. That was the biggest learning curve for me: understanding when to let go and be calm even when I wanted to immediately “fix” the situation. My son would cry and I would try everything under the sun to figure out why — and how to resolve it. Sometimes it was just a matter of being as calm and comforting as I could be.

Thankfully, I had a wife who was there with me every step of the way. She taught and showed me what a great parent can be. She was so positive all the time and was always there for our son. It made the process easier to adapt and adjust to. Her knowledge, confidence and energy inspired confidence in me and motivated me to become a better father.

Our youngest is now four and we have a second son who’s 11 months old. I change diapers; I watch them alone; I’ve watched them overnight and I feel comfortable doing so. It may not seem like much, but knowing I can do all these things took a lot. And I know it helps create a better atmosphere for my family and our sons.

So while I may not have been fully-prepared to have a kid, I know that doing it with a woman who is confident and understanding makes the process easier. Her strength was my fuel and lifeblood in our early days of parenting. It made our relationship as husband and wife stronger and it helped us grow closer together.

Having children is an amazing and incredible experience. Having someone I love to live through it by my side helped me to improve and grow as a person — and become the husband and father that I am today.

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