Andrew J. Moore

I love this picture. I know I look tired and I’m covered in little stuffed animals, but this is the most honest picture of being a girl-dad to a toddler I could find. I mean, there I am. Still me. Still wearing clothes that feel like me, rocking long hair and not regretting my tattoos in the slightest. But, I’m also raising a little girl now. And sometimes that means holding a little pink elephant in my arms and demonstrating how to treat it with affection. To let her crawl on me and honk my nose, yank my hair, and pull my eye lids open so she knows I can be trusted to share in her new experiences and lessons learned. That I can handle her emotions and her little outbursts but that I also have boundaries and I too need to be treated with love and affection – just like her bunnies Lala and Lalo or her babydoll Nene.

I feel lucky that, for a new dad, I’m on the older side – early forties. I’m less selfish than a younger me and more settled into myself. I’m not obsessed with what’s next or glorifying travel. I am a more skilled communicator and my wife and I are definitely reading from the same book if not always on the same page. I’ve processed enough of my own shit that I’m not so reactive and overactive to the things I can’t control.

I’m not perfect. The other day I had a moment where I was getting heated about something that I perceived as a gross miscarriage of justice, and the level and tone of my voice that I used while venting to my wife about it made my daughter nervous. You see, she can’t differentiate between papa is “mad” and papa is mad at her. She just knows there is something unsettling about a man growing angry. So, raising my daughter is more than just how I directly interact with her, but how I behave in her presence, and soon how I behave in my community. Because how I act at out in the world impacts how I’m perceived. And those perceptions will eventually make their way back to my daughter, where she’ll have to wrestle with the differences in the way she experiences her father vs. what is being presented to her by others.

The last little tidbit I’ll share here, is that I am absolutely my best when I am present and committed to being a parent in that very moment. I rarely get stressed by the things my daughter does, but when I do it’s almost always when I’m trying to “get work done” while my daughter is bouncing around the living room or trying to get my attention. The reality for me is that parenting is pretty fun most of the time and definitely meaningful, even if the rewards aren’t always immediate. But when I am pushing myself in too many directions and trying to “multitask” when I should be eating or playing or just sitting with my child, those are the times when I get impatient and don’t look exactly like the father I have envisioned for myself.

I don’t have a lot of advice or tips and tricks to make this happen, other than maybe dedicating time for those “other things” for when your child is asleep or at daycare or with the grandparents or other caregivers. For example, I go skate on Sunday mornings with a friend and have a once a month book club with a few other dads. I think as children grow it’s easier to bring them into your hobbies and share your interests with them, at least I hope that is true. But for these first 18 months of my daughter’s life, the most important thing for me has been to embrace the role of and that identity as a dad full on, because thus far I’ve been as present for as many tiny and not so tiny moments as possible without feeling much desire to be anywhere else.

Yes, I’ve been beyond tired and full of doubt. I had to sit helplessly in the hospital while my wife clung to the edge of life in the ICU after she delivered our beautiful girl. (I’ll share more about that one day). But, the joy and the love and the fascination that comes with being a parent far outweigh all of the challenges and hard times that preceded or come with it.

Thanks for reading this little fatherhood reflection and if you’re a parent good luck on your journey and all the best to you and your family.

Andrew

(PS or to whom it may concern or whatever: This was not written or edited by or with the support of generative AI – so, I guess if it’s even possible to ask this, don’t dump this into an LLM)