On Fatherhood - The Philosophical Organism
I have become a stereotype.
As a young man with misplaced aspirations of professional bachelorhood, the idea of marriage and children wasn’t just foreign to me, it was anathema. Those were things what “normals” did. Those same normals would then tell you about how great it is as a coping mechanism for dealing with their despair. How could a man be happy with just one woman? How could a man be happy looking after testosterone stealing little breeder offspring?
The answer is easily, very easily.
While I do plan on talking about marriage as a millennial man, that is something for another time. Today I want to begin speak about my experience as a an ill-prepared father and some of the retrospective observations that I’ve made.
**Note: On Fatherhood will be a reoccurring topic
As I said I have become a stereotype. I have become that guy for whom his children are the greatest thing he’s ever done. It changes you on a deep fundamental level. They become your everything in the best possible way.
“My kids are my life” is the Live, Laugh, Love of parenthood, but its honestly completely true. The jaded and perpetually single love to spin this as a negative, as a sacrifice.
“Your children are you life because you have no life!”
And there’s more than a grain of truth in this notion, but it isn’t the negative thing they try to make it. For me it’s almost biblical.
Genesis 2:24 says:
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
This is interpreted in marriage as two becoming one, inseparable, but more important it marks the birth of a new organism, something that needs to grow. I feel very similarly about parenthood and the birth of your children. To me that is another instance where you become “one flesh”, where many become one, and once again something new is born.
As a parent your children ARE your life, but this isn’t a bad thing at all. They become the the main focus of this new Philosophical Organism, and once again you must grow. So while your children are you life, you are there’s as well. You feed one another, feed off one another, and grow together.
The thing is, for men especially I feel, this understanding is not inherent. Women seem to get it naturally, almost robotically. The first 18 months of parenthood my wife was almost on autopilot. That isn’t to say it was easy for her, quite the opposite. But she just got it in a way I didn’t, not at first.
We are selfish creatures, but then again all creatures are. It is the ability to overlook the innate selfishness that might be the defining characteristic of the quality that is “having a soul”.
And being a parent requires a whole lot of soul.
The thing they don’t tell you, not enough anyways, is the same thing the aforementioned jaded and single decry. Having kids means you are no longer yours. Your time, your money, your entire existence now belongs to the Philosophical Organism that is your family.
Its easy to think “well that’s how it was before the kids, my wife was my life!” but your wife understands you. She understands that sometimes you need a break, you need your own time and you may need your own space. Children do not, and they should not, not when they’re very young. It is the human condition that our children need us. Alligators are born ready to hunt the moment they breach the egg, humans babies are not even always able to breathe. That is now needy we are.
Little babies and children need you entirely, that is why the idea of this Philosophical Organism, this new creature, this one flesh, makes so much sense to me. If they hurt, you hurt. If they are overjoyed, you are overjoyed. You are inextricably linked on a deep fundamental level, but that doesn’t mean this is an automatic process.
Like with all things human it is our ability to choose that defines us the most. Unlike animals we aren’t ruled by instinct. We feel our instincts, we feel that invisible guidance, but its just that, guidance. It isn’t an iron rule, it isn’t a compulsion, its a little voice that tells you what to do, and your conscious thinking mind can either agree or disagree.
Once again I think this is doubly true for men. No one talks about paternal instincts because men are more disconnected from them. I imagine this is a function of the role of men in the time before civilization. Hunters and warriors were not always going to be around, and being tied to their children could compromise the safety, security and wellbeing of the tribe. For men these paternal instincts must be internalized and turned on.
In our modern world were selfishness isn’t just common but encouraged this can be a huge stumbling block, especially if, like me, you do not have a positive role model to reflect on. I didn’t have an example to follow, I’ve been making it up as I go. So this individualistic sacrifice to the Philosophical Organism was not something I understood at first. More importantly, it was something I rebelled against.
This inability to see the forest through the trees in the early years of my children’s lives is my greatest regret. I didn’t understand that I was part of something bigger than myself, bigger than my wife and I. I was a part of this new organism without contributing to it, almost cancerous in a way.
It was through the strength of my relationship and my own introspective nature I was able to see the error of what I was doing and embrace this new existence. My interests, hobbies, and the things I enjoy are drastically different now, because they are now inline with the Philosophical Organism. That isn’t to say they’re gone, that I gave up anything, I’ve simply found new ways to pass my time, new things I enjoy.
I used to play video games, go drinking, go to bars and shows, and all these other typical millennial male activities. Not being able to do them drove me nuts, it made me depressed, but more importantly in attempting to cling to them I failed my wife and my children. I looked to what I was and felt sadness that I couldn’t be that anymore, completely ignorant to the new life I had turned my back to.
But embracing this new life, embracing the Philosophical Organism, doesn’t mean sacrificing who you are. It means redefining it. You still get to be an individual, you aren’t a slave to your parenthood the way the perpetually single and childless like to frame it. Rather you are the manager of this new endeavor, steering it, driving it, and growing it. Where you felt enjoyment in the moment, you now feel pride in the journey.
To put it into terms that the old me would understand, its like going from a FPS game, where you are the driving force behind your victory and outcome, to a team management RPG. Instead of being the direct driver of your actions and will you are now a manager of sorts, influencing the greater whole, making decisions and deriving entertainment and enjoyment through the success of your “team”.
Your children absolutely become your life, but in doing so they make your life different and unique. I was just another guy before they were born. Against what I believed about “the normals” having children, its in fact the normals who don’t. In this modern world we live in having children has become one of the most radical acts of self expression one can engage in. Most of what I do will be forgotten, but the legacy I create with them will echo into the end of time.
In becoming a stereotype I have become more of an individual than I ever have been.