Table of Contents
Ill teach you about trains, William, and you teach me about life.
To Dad and Mom for making me a son. To Tirzah and Talya for making me a dad. And to Lizzie and the Z, for helping me do it again.
Introduction
Ask any father you know, and hell say the same thing: hes a very different person today than he would have been if he hadnt had children. Hell probably tell you about the bad back he developed from being used for years as a living piece of playground equipment, about the lack of sex or having less disposable income because its all been spent on tuition, or about the minivan hed have never, ever set foot into a few years ago. But if you push a little more, hell tell you that whats really changed him is his children. Its the actactually the ongoing processof being a father thats made him the man he is today and has forever altered his behavior, his priorities, his choices, his attitudes about the world and his place in it, and even where and how he lives. In short, being a father changes everything.
Really and truly, the idea that fatherhood transforms men isnt all that surprising. Its one of those well, duh kinds of things. But what is surprising is how little we really know about how parentsand fathers in particularevolve over their lifetimes. We know a lot about child development and how parents influence their children. And every year dozens of books and thousands of magazine articles give us more insights into how we can raise happy, healthy, successful kids. We also know a fair amount about how adults develop over their life spans. But almost nothing has been written on how parents change and grow over time or how children impact their parents lives. What little information there is focuses almost exclusively on mothers.
Its tempting to put the blame for this on the anthropologist Margaret Mead, who once said that fathers are a biological necessity but a social accident, a comment that still pretty well reflects our societys attitudes about fathers. For years, researchers studying families and children basically ignored fathers, never even bothering to include them in studies or to consider that they might play an important role in their childrens lives. Fortunately, not everyone took that tack, and some even focused their energies on fathers. In 1975 one of those trend-bucking researchers, Michael Lamb, wrote that far from being social accidents, fathers were actually the forgotten contributors to child development.
In the decades since Lamb opened the door and brought fathers out of the closet, weve discovered just how important fathers are. Children whose fathers are involved in their lives are healthier and happier than kids whose dads arent involved. They also do better in school, are more likely to go to college, earn more, and are less likely to abuse drugs or alcohol, have behavioral problems, go to jail, or become teen parents. As it turns out, fathers are no less important to their children than mothers are.
But back to father development. Fathers dont usually do their parenting in a vacuum. Like mothers, fathers play a variety of roles. Besides being dads, theyre husbands, brothers, uncles, sons, nephews, employees, employers, coaches, and much more. So from a scientific perspective, its hard to prove that being a fatheras opposed to any other factor, such as being married or rich or living in Montanais responsible for anything in particular.
But, as is often the case, people intuitively know things that scientific research simply cant prove. Take the differences between boys and girls, for example. No matter how politically correct it is to insist that boys and girls are the same, just about every parent who has at least one of each will tell you that despite the most gender-neutral upbringing, the two genders are just plain different. The same goes for father development. Just about everyone agrees that fathers are, in a way, the product of their children, growing withand often in response tothem. Perhaps thats what William Wordsworth meant when he wrote, The child is father of the man, in his 1802 poem My Heart Leaps Up.
Father for Life is the first book ever to look specifically at how fathers develop over their entire life span. Its written for menand womenwho want to understand the symbiotic relationship between fathers and children and how each affects the others growth and development.
Ive been fascinated with this topic for quite some time, and started writing about it in The Expectant Father: Facts, Tips, and Advice for Dads-to-Be. The idea seemed simple enough: a man whos just found out that his partner is expecting is clearly very different from the kind of man hell be when he first holds his newborn in his arms. And, as you might guess, that brand-new dad will have grown tremendously by the time his baby speaks his first words, and hell keep changing and developing as that same child takes his first steps, gets potty-trained, and starts preschool. I explored this progression in the next two books, The New Father: A Dads Guide to the First Year and The New Father: A Dads Guide to the Toddler Years.
The process doesnt end therein fact, it never does. To paraphrase Therese Benedek, one of the first researchers to study parent development, fatherhood is a process that ends only with the death of the father. Fathers continue to change every day, as their children hit puberty, learn to drive, move out, have kids of their own, move back home, and perhaps eventually reverse the roles and care for the father himself. But no matter how old his children are or where they live, a father is always a father.
So how do dads change over the course of their lifelong fatherhood? Many dads say that being a dad has given their life new meaning and direction. Others say that having children, interacting with them, getting to know them, teaching them, guiding them, being an active part of their lives, and generally dealing with the joys and frustrations of parenthood has made them:
More patient, understanding, and empathetic.
More aware of their own strengths and flaws and more tolerant of others weaknesses.
More flexible and better able to prepare contingency plans.
More concerned about making the world a better place.
Better able to see and appreciate things from others perspective.
A better husband, friend, employee, employer, and person in general.
Emotionally deeper, able to experience and express unconditional love as well as many other emotions theyd rarely or never felt.
Restructure their priorities, placing family and children above work and personal advancement.
Proudof their childrens accomplishments and of their own role in helping their children achieve them.
Slow down, enjoy life, and have more fun.
Healthier and less likely to engage in risky or dangerous behavior.
Smarteryou can go back and learn all those things you didnt get to when you were a kid.
