Those of us who are already parents remember it as if it were yesterday. Every time you broke the news you received a similar response: "Congratulations ... But get ready, because your good life is running out !!"
At this we could only smile and wait to discover what they meant.
Now, two years and 8 months after my son was born I can say that my life has changed. The good life is over and came the one that was better.
The good life they referred to is everything that is gradually replaced by moments with your child.
The level of substitution at which one arrives or the time it takes to produce this change depends on each parent, so I cannot say that I am speaking of an absolute truth, because I speak of my truth. The console, going to the movies, going out to dinner, partying, living as a couple, playing football with friends, doing overtime at work to collect more ... everything was gradually going down in my personal value scale to the time that Jon was going up.
Being a father is not something that comes at once. Biologically speaking yes, of course, the day your baby is born you are a father, but we have a disadvantage: we have not taken it nine months inside and although we have seen the changes, we have not felt them.
Being a father (acting as such), in my view, is not a process of days, it is something that is a matter of time. In my case it was months until my involvement was absolute.
Not that it wasn't the most important thing for me, that it was, but that the change is very big, huge, and it's hard to get rid of your old I almost post-teen to make way for the new mature and responsible man.
To give a personal example, last fall, taking Jon 18 months I signed up with some friends to a soccer league seven. I went to a few games, but the lack of pace, the age (I called myself Henry) and seeing me running again after a ball, like years ago but with the difference of leaving an 18-month-old boy at home made me reach tell myself: “But what am I doing here?”, When I realized that I preferred to take advantage of Saturday afternoons to be with my son Than to go play football.
And as with football, it has happened to me with many other things. Now I try to work as little as possible to spend more hours with him, if we are going to eat outside, or for dinner, we are all three, if we go on vacation, we are all three, the cinema is our house and the couple ... Couple life is a separate issue.
I have heard this phrase very often: "You have to continue having a partner's life." And I drag my scalp with a little finger thinking: "Now, but now we are not a couple, now we are a family." And in my family we are three. A couple with a child, therefore, we already have a couple's life, but with our son.
So the title of the post is true, it will change your life, insurance. I don't want to say that the change will be the same as with me, nor that you have to leave everything you like to be with your children (although they will thank you). Maybe in the middle is the balance, or maybe not. Maybe you can do the things you like in which your child can participate. I don't want to do anything directly in which Jon is excluded.
Getting a little philosophical, his birth has helped me to jump off the conveyor belt. Metaphorically speaking, we all live in one of these tapes, at full speed, often crossing with other tapes and pushing or being pushed by other people at the crossing, almost without thinking about why we are in one of them living at full speed or in if there is anything else out of the default path.
Well, Jon was born and I jumped off my tape. Suddenly everything stopped and I could find a quiet, friendly dirt road, surrounded by innocence, of affection. A tired road, because the road must be walked and built (the tape already exists, it takes you) and we do not lie down, raise a child it is a huge responsibility and on many occasions it is tremendously exhausting (I will talk about this another day), but having an opportunity to slow the pace of life and become a more human, less consumerist and more empathic person is something that, for me, is priceless.
