Sebastian was born on December 3, 2002 and my life changed
instantaneously. I learned the true meaning of love, the true meaning of
unconditional love. After the first couple of weeks I started calling my
parents everyday to tell them how much I appreciated them, knowing that I had
neglected to tell them for all these years. Before I had Sebastian I didn’t
understand the amount of love that a parent can have for their child.
After one year, Sebastian’s mom and I decided to separate. The
separation was from her and not from Sebastian, which was clear from the
beginning to me. I know many fathers in the past associated their child with
the relationship to the mother. That doesn’t seem to be the case anymore for my
generations’ dads.
Sebastian has always been an early riser and when I say
early, I mean early. It is still completely dark outside and I suddenly I hear
in my dreams a little boy screaming - PAPA, PAPA, PAPA. Sebastian never understood
the concept of “it is to early, everyone is still asleep”. I wake up and wander,
half asleep, over to his room. Even
though I promised myself that when I had a child I would not use the TV as a
crutch, I quickly got over that. Sesame Street or Biene Maja (Maja, the bee)
are good ways to keep a two-year old busy before breakfast at 6:30 a.m. After I
got a few more minutes of rest we would have lengthy breakfast and then head
over to the Tompkins Square Park playground, just a half a block from our house. To my surprise I would find I
was not the only one there. There were usually about 5 other dads with their
little ones. Some have their kids in a sling and others are pushing their kids
on a swing.
This seems to be more and more the scene that you see in New York City. My fellow
dads are so much more hands on involved with their kids then our dads ever were.
Not that our dads loved us any less, but their role was quite different then ours
is today. We dads want to be equally as much involved as the moms. I feel like
in many ways that we over compensate for the lack of time and involvement that our
dads had in our lives.
The involvement that we have with our children is clearly documented
as being beneficial to our kids. Some interesting facts from education.com show
that:
- babies as young as three months old can tell the difference between
their mother and father. They can tell by the way each speaks to them,
holds them, and by their different smells.
- research has shown that children whose fathers are involved in
rearing them score higher on cognitive tests (they seem smarter) than those
with relatively uninvolved fathers.
- improved cognitive abilities are associated with higher
educational achievement. In fact, fathers who are involved in their
children's schools and academic achievement, regardless of their own
educational level, are increasing the chances their child will graduate
from high school, perhaps go to vocational school, or even to college.
- research shows that fathers who are more involved with their
children tend to raise children who experience more success in their
career. Career success can lead to greater income and greater financial
stability.
- father involvement is associated with positive child
characteristics such as empathy, self-esteem, self-control, psychological
well-being, social competence, and life skills.
I
know none of these statistics really matter to any of us dads. We just want to
be with our little ones. For me,
wanting to be with Sebastian is done out complete selfishness. I get so much
out of being with him. Sebastian has taught me what true love means.
