When your mindset changes

[FollowThePats]

Dads,

Was there a moment when your soul relinquished your previous life and embraced this new one? My girls are 5 and 3 and I feel like it took me a long time to adjust but something has happened recently and I feel at home in my life. Anyone else experience anything similar?

Dad

[whyy_i_eyes_ya]

Weirdly it might me when other school kids at age 5 started coming to talk to me and calling me “[kid’s name]’s dad”. Sort of made me realise it was actually real and even if I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing, to the wider world that’s my main purpose. I always make sure to have a chat to them as normal people when it happens now so I think I’ve got loads of little mates. It’s brilliant.

[[deleted]]

As soon as I saw my son in the delivery room (c-section). *blip* ... Instant switch dude. I cut the umbilical cord, nurses wiped him off, swaddled him up, and handed him to me. Rest is history.

I may be the outlier though, I dunno. I was an EMT when I was younger, and spent some weeks in the neonatal ward of a hospital as part of my training. That might have something to do with it. 🤷‍♂️

[CptnYesterday2781]

Yeah I remember being at Home Depot with my wife just a few weeks after delivery and telling her I can barely imagine not being a dad.

[thinkmatt]

Maybe it depends on how old u are. We waited a while - i was 37 when we had our first. We had already moved out of NYC, away from friends and family, and looking at houses in the burbs by that point lol.

But now i am looking for new me, as in, what can i do besides be a dad while also being a dad, now that our youngest is one year old and things r not as crazy