Looking at my role in the first seven months

Out little bundle of joy recently turned seven months, and for some reason it got me thinking about
what my role has been during this time. It’s an interesting question as I had always been of the belief
that I wanted to be a father and not a sperm donor. That unfortunately flies in the face of the popular
belief that “dads get involved from a year onwards”. So truly what has been my role?

Well for a start Mitch was premature which meant I was involved from the word go in ICU with feeding and changing, I had no choice and wouldn’t have had it any other way even if I had a choice. Then we hit a sensitive issue, breast feeding.

Unfortunately my wife really battled with breast feeding and even expressing, this is more common than we like to believe. For us though it was seen as a positive as Kim wasn’t the only one involved with feeding. This had two benefits;

1. Kim got a break and sleep as we could share the load with me doing the nighttime feeds or we could rotate them. The value of this cannot be stressed enough especially when your budle of joy is on three hourly feeds

2. I got to bond with and be a part of Mitch’s life from the word go. This is a small thing but invaluable to him and I still feed today and typically do the first feed in the morning at around 4:30am before heading to work and various feeds at the weekend. It’s a time that I enjoy.

Of course there are the day to day things that I have been involved with such as bathing, unless totally unavoidable I am home for bath time as we have made it a fun family time. Changing nappies, comforting, playing are all taken care of as a team so we jump in and work them as a couple.

Within the day to day activities I have found that there are certain gender specific roles that do take place. For example comforting is definitely a “mommy thing”, I tend to crush him without realizing it. On the converse of this certain elements of the fun stuff like launching him into the air, playing rough and tumble, yes even in the first few months, I am better able to do.

However in looking back I have seen that my main role actually hasn’t been anything to do with Mitch. My main role has actually been supporting Kim especially as we have had a sick child. The both emotional and physical support given to the mother sometimes overlooked as a major role in the life of a child. This support doesn’t necessarily mean being a councilor, far from it. It means being there for them, reinforcing that they are the best mother your child could ever wish for and then doing the little things.

Little things in our house include; cooking dinner each night, running the odd bath, taking Mitch for a walk after work to give Kim some space, likewise on a Sunday morning so she can have a lie in, sending her off for coffee with friends, so on and so forth.

So looking back yes I think I have played a key role in my sons first seven months but you could argue that I have potentially played a bigger role in my wifes life. It’s something that you don’t often think about.