Fatherhood

I was thinking about trying to write something about how it feels to become a parent, about what it’s like to change from some dude with a pregnant wife to a father but I realized that I can’t really do much better than Tycho did, so go read that instead: he speaks for me.

A note about language: I’ve been thinking about the words we use to describe the act of having and caring for children. It’s strange to think of myself as a “father” but I’m getting more comfortable with the idea of myself as a “parent.” “Parenting” and “mothering” are, more or less, synonyms (if there’s a difference, it’s that mothering takes on a negative connotation when used figuratively—nice going, sexists). To “parent” or to “mother” a child is a lifelong process, an ongoing, never-ending, fairly selfless act of nurturing, caring, and sustaining another human being.

But to “father” a child? You can father a child in an instant, and that’s the end of it. Our stupid sexist language makes fatherhood a discrete act—an achievement rather than a process. I don’t want to make any impossible promises or any lofty claims, but I would like to try, for these two children, to make “fathering” something better.

Filed under Parenting | Tags: language, sexism | Comment (1)