First time Father

As you use family trips and family dinner nights to facilitate your son discovering himself and his purpose, he will learn how to take what he learned under your care and adjust it to those stages of his life when he is under his own care. What will be common to each stage, though, is your gift of encouraging him to be a human being first, and

J’ai longtemps pensé que devenir père signifierait devoir renoncer à mes rêves. J’avais fini par m’en persuader. Mais j’avais tort. En vérité, je craignais de ne pas être à la hauteur. Être parent est le plus grand des défis.

being an involved dad creates a “dad brain” that replaces his single-man desires. He’ll experience a decrease in the testosterone previously used in the hunt for sex and recovery after rejection, and an increase in oxytocin emanating from the joys of loving and being loved by an infant who needs him.

My reaction to the first sight of that love was extremes of happiness that came from a sense of belonging. Suddenly, finally, things on earth made sense; they had a higher meaning.

A dad needs to be able to contribute a countervailing consideration to mom’s fear: the value of learning to explore with dad as a GPS as needed, so they don’t get too lost.

We have seen that the amount of time a father spends with a child is “one of the strongest predictors of empathy in adulthood.”6 Teaching a child to treat boundaries seriously teaches him or her to respect the needs of others.

“My mom warns and warns; it’s like she ‘cries wolf.’ My dad gives us one warning, and then he becomes the wolf.”