FATHERHOOD. WHAT A BEAUTIFUL THING

I’ve had good sex. Very good sex. Awesome feeling. On numerous occasions. I’ve eaten those healthy cookies from Colorado laced with…. You know what. I’ve drank some very good wine and felt good drinking them. I’ve had fun, time and again, with friends, and done some pretty wild stuff. I’ve lived in 3 different continents, and experienced lovely cultures across 4 continents. And most importantly, I live in the USA, arguably the best country on earth. I have had fun in life. However, none of these compares to the fun am having right now being a father to my little angel and carbon copy, CKE II.

Every time I hold my boy, I feel alive, every time I hold my boy, I feel enraptured by goodness, every time I hold my boy, I feel beautiful, every time I hold my boy, I feel great, every time I hold my boy, I feel joy, every time I hold my boy, I feel responsible, everytime I hold my boy, I feel fulfilled. My boy is 8 days shy of three months, but that boy does act like an adult. He gets me. He is super smart. And he is a happy baby. He cries only when he is hungry, when he has pooed on his diapers, and above all, when he wants daddy to pick him up and hold him close to my heart. He is not a cry baby and once you meet his needs, he leaves you alone and retreats back to his wonderworld. My boy, is a bundle of joy.

His smiles. His smiles are huge and so enthralling it can humanize Lucifer. Hyperbolic. Isn’t it? But you get the gist. He loves it when I sing to him or when his mother read Bible passages to him. It puts him straight to sleep, and once asleep, he smiles through his sleep. Most of the time my wife wonders what’s going on in his dream that makes him smile so much. I often tell her that our son is flirting with girls. Funny. Isn’t it? Anyways, he is his father’s son. What else can I say? His facial expressions are too numerous my wife has gotten tired of capturing them on camera. He simply has too many.

His strength amazes us, especially considering his age. It takes both his mom and I to hold him in place anytime he feels congested and we feel the need to remove buggers from his nose. He kicks with both legs and he blocks with his hands. That boy is simply too strong for his age. Honestly speaking.

CKE II is a complete package of blessing, joy and beauty wrapped together by God and sent to my wife and I as a gift. He never gets sick. Have not been sick and by God, will not get sick. I talk to him and he talks back to me, always with a broad smile. Although I am yet to decipher whatever the heck he’s saying back to me. Probably couple of months down the road. But whatever he is saying to me now, I bet ya it is something good considering the big smiles on his face everytime he talks back to me.

Everytime I look at my son, I feel like an achiever and it makes me wonder why so many fathers walk away from this honorable privilege of being part of raising their children. Children are simply a blessing. And when children grow up knowing that they are loved and cared for by both parents, even if those parents doesn’t live together, it gives them a sense of belonging and improves their chances of becoming responsible members of the society. I know many times fathers run away from becoming part of their children’s life from conception because it comes with a word that starts with a big R, but it is a responsibility worth embracing. Everytime I bathe my son, everytime I dry his young body and lotion it up, everytime I put his clothes on him, everytime I clean his poo and changes his diaper, every time I feed him, I feel big, I feel better, and I feel like am a positive addition to society. Everytime I am involved in raising my son, I feel responsible. And this feeling is what every father out there should endeavor to experience. It is a beautiful thing.

I am not naïve. Life is complicated. One may argue that it is easy for me to be involved in my son’s life because I gave birth to him in wedlock. That sometimes fathers who are already married but somehow find themselves in a precarious situation of having a child with another woman may want to be involved in their child’s life but because of high stakes such as negative public perception, especially for public figures, will rather covertly support their child than overtly be a father. Some will shy away from the big R because of family backlash. For instance their wife may want to divorce them if she gets wind of the love child and divorce may cause them some personal losses. So they hide. There are several legitimate arguments why fathers will not want to be fathers to the child they made. To those fathers, I say, embrace the big R. You made that child. He or she is not a mistake. Your child with another woman who is not your wife is of no lesser importance than your child(ren) with your wife. They are all your children and you should treat them equally as such. There are no higher stakes in life than for all your children to have a sense of love, acceptance and belonging.

So if any married man should find himself a father to a child out of wedlock, he should go to his wife in humility; confess his sins to her, admit his recklessness without excuses, be remorseful about his actions, and appeal to the mother in her to give him a pass to be involved in the life of his child. It will hurt her. It will be difficult for her to accept and process. But time heals everything and with time, she will forgive him and he’ll get the pass to do what is right. You wouldn’t want to be that father that could’ve saved your own child from prison, drug abuse, or teen pregnancy but chose not to due to cowardice. To be a man is synonymous with courage, especially in the face of possible personal losses. And one of the qualities of a real man is being good at crisis management. I implore fathers therefore to man up and step up to the plate. Most kids make bad choices that are unsalvageable in life because of the sense of abandonment they feel due to father deficiency. I borrowed that line from The Master of Disguise. So like Christ Jesus left the 99 sheep to go search for that one lost sheep in order to bring it home, fathers, bring your children home.

And for public perception, Robert Greene in the 48 Laws of Power postulates, “Nobody honors the timid but everybody admires the bold or courageous. Mistakes made through boldness are easily corrected with more boldness.” As an observer of political discourse all over the world, especially in the U.S. where morality plays a significant role in politics, I know that the public will not forgive a politician for having a child, abandoning his child for selfish reasons, and hiding the child from them, when they eventually find out about the child. But when a man invests in courage and owns up to his actions and faces up to the consequences like a man should, the public will respect the courage he displayed in the face of losing it all. The public will admire his decision to do what is right by accepting his fatherly responsibility towards his child. And the public will trust that when it comes to fighting for them, especially fights that require courage and true statesmanship, that he is the right man for the job and can deliver for them. And the public will vote him in or select him. Whatever the case may be.

They say that family; faith and something else are the three most important things in a person’s life. And family means any and everyone related to you by blood. We do not live in an ideal world. And no family or marriage is perfect. Hence it behooves every father, in order for us all to have a posterity that will salvage our future, in order to depopulate our prisons, in order to mitigate teen pregnancy, in order to arrest avoidable crimes, and in order to give our children a better chance at life, whether they are born in wedlock or out of wedlock, to embrace responsibility and courage. With same enthusiasm you displayed when you are hitting it, show equal and unrivalled enthusiasm, not only in helping raise your child, even if you cannot marry their mother, but also in supporting the mother of your child through the pregnancy. It is the right thing. It is the courageous thing to do.

It feels good to be a father and to embrace the responsibility that comes with it. I have never felt this good in my entire life until now. Fatherhood is a beautiful thing. And every father that has ever made a child, in or out of wedlock, should try to experience what I feel now.

Let the debate continue…

Author: Ezeocha Post

I am passionate about politics and the social challenges that faces our country. As a firm believer in the goodness of man, and at the risk of sounding naïve, I am convinced that when people of goodwill driven by gallant ideas come together to fashion out a better world, and pursue these ideas with energy and vigor, that somehow they will prevail. My blog will seek to provide a platform through which these gallant ideas can be birthed for a better and equitable world. View all posts by Ezeocha Post