The Privilege
Three Months Into Fatherhood & The Strangers You’ll Meet
The little girl in the picture above is my daughter, “Izzy.” She just turned three months. As much as I can, I try to record what I learn about fatherhood as she evolves into the person she’s going to become. If pressed to summarize the place of fatherhood so early in her life, I would say this: The mother is essential, the life blood of the child’s life, while the father — me — is essentially unnecessary, nice to have around, perhaps, but expendable.
Therefore, I have come to learn motherhood is about sacrifice, hard work, intense emotional waves, and a bond man will never really understand. Fatherhood, by proxy, is a privilege.
The privilege is being able to do my own thing and then “swoop in” to catch glimpes of a life unfolding without putting in the real hard work. For instance, I get to pick her up after a feeding, when she is intoxicated and at ease. I also get to cart her around town and have people stop and gawk at her. It is pretty cool. What I wasn’t prepared for, however, is how complete strangers will just stop and look at your kid and strike up a conversation. I welcome these friendly interruptions. Most of these folks are older women. Seeing young kids must trigger all sorts of memories simple men like me simply will never understand.
In Izzy’s three months on Earth, she’s befriended three strangers in particular who stick out in my mind. One very old lady in a card shop stopped me, placed her hand on her chest as if she was grasping for air, and drooped her entire body in awe of how young Izzy was (at two weeks). Just a few days ago, we were having a family dinner at a small Italian restaurant in the middle of Connecticut and a multi-generational family trickled out past our table — the last duck in the row was a very old man sporting a USS Wichita hat. He let Izzy grab his pinky finger as he told us about his four tours of duty across the Atlantic and Pacific in WWII. With four great-grandchildren himself and thirteen battle scars to his name, he kneeled over and talked to Izzy as if she were an old friend.
But in three short months packed with all sorts of random encounters, one burns brightest in my mind. I was walking Izzy’s stroller into town early one morning, and a lady (probably in her 50s, I’d guess) started walking beside me and wanted to see her. I pulled back the cover, and we started talking and walking for a good long block. At the end, she confided in me she had three daughters of her own, and warned, as most experienced parents do, that they grow up so darn fast.
As she walked away, she looked in the stroller again and then, placing an arm on my shoulder and beginning to pivot in another direction, she placed her other hand on her chest, in disbelief, and asked: “Oh my, did you ever think you could love something so much?”
