George and Barbara Bush with their first born child George W. Bush, while Bush was a student at Yale (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
My son’s coming up to four months old, and parenthood’s teaching me quite a lot. Expect more posts to appear over time, but I thought I ought to start somewhere.
Fatherhood’s definitely different to what I thought it would be – it’s nowhere near as complicated (actually, right now, it’s pretty straightforward) but it’s way harder.
One particular thing that struck me immediately as different was the fact that I didn’t cry when he was born. Having talked to lots of dads, and having watched One Born Every Minute, I was convinced that I’d be a babbling wreck when he arrived. As it turned out I was far too tired to respond like that, and thank goodness I’d watched One Born because having a purple son would have freaked me out otherwise.
In fact, the whole concept of immediately feeling overwhelming love towards my son had almost set the bar so high that I was never going to experience it. Where people have said before that your feelings for your kids teach you about God’s heart for you has turned out to be a bit of a let-down so far if I’m honest. When he’s older and sets fire to my car in anger and I still forgive him, maybe then I’ll get it a bit better.
But something struck me that I never knew would.
The Father was willing to sacrifice his son for me.
I think perhaps I’m learning after all.
