Welcome to the world Dakota Justice Wright (the smaller pinkish thing in the picture), born February 3rd to my bestfriend CJ (the larger pinkish thing in the picture). I generally don’t like reading about other people’s friends having babies, so I’m going to assume you all don’t particularlly care about his – unless you know him.
However, it has got me pondering about the whole fatherhood thing. I use to scoff at the idea of a paternal clock (new age mumbo jumbo!), but lately I’ve been hearing ticking and I’m going to assume that it’s not the bomb drawn into Mohammed’s turban in those controversial cartoons that are all over the news – nor the retaliatory real ones the Muslim world is setting off in protest (that’s balanced eh?).
I really think a lot of my grown affection to the idea of fatherhood comes from two things. 1) Having met a woman that I could see having a family with and 2) Having a job that has dispelled some of my fears about being around children. I admit, I was just downright scared of the little buggers before coming to China. I mean, I know they’re smaller than me, but bees are smaller than me too and I’m fuckin’ fearful of them as well.
Working with, entertaining and trying to relate to kids is my day-to-day here, and it’s shown me that they’re rather a lot like me, but smaller of course. They’re just as clumsy, have both moments of brilliance and moments of complete stupidity, like goofing around, have rather short attention spans, and enjoy saying horribly inappropriate things at the most inopportune moments. And most of them share my dislike for vegetables.
Kids are great. I never would have said it a year and a half ago, but I can’t wait to be a father. This isn’t to say that I’m in a rush to put a bun in the oven or anything. I do see the limits starting a family creates in life, and there are a few things I want to do first (school, marriage, South American travels, better job – in roughly that order), but when the time comes (whether it comes when I expect it or when I don’t) I think I’ll really dig being a father.
Congratz CJ.
