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My daughters are 2 and a half and 10 months. The most important part of being a father right now is making sure my wife doesn't ever feel like a single parent. Because of our work schedules, she used to take them both to daycare in the morning and pick them up. Now that I start work later, we had a discussion and agreed I should take them. On days I work from home, if I'm able, I take a break from their dinner time until bed time to spend time and help around the house. On weekends and evenings, I make sure that my wife has time to be her own person and do her own things. I know this isn't as fun as teaching your kid how to ride a bike, but in the early years, it's very important to show up and do the work and not just be another person in your child's life who will transform into a father when bedtimes are later and communication is improved. It's also important to our marriage. She's not the mom, and I'm not the worker. We're the parents, and we're both involved in our children's lives. One semi-related point of pride: We are English-speakers in a non-English-speaking country. I realized that there's no cultural reason my kids should call me "dad," "father," "daddy," "pops," or the like. No matter what they call me, it'll be weird to the native speakers of the local language. My wife and I decided the kids could call me "opossum" (pronounced "possum"). The oldest one has many stuffed opossum toys, and she likes to watch videos about opossums. She outgrew her baby blanket, but she was attached to it and didn't want to give it up. Since our daughter loves dogs, my wife bought one with dogs on it. That lasted 2 or 3 nights before she was back to the baby blanket. I ordered her a larger blanket with opossums and flowers on it, and she now proudly uses that one. Even though she doesn't understand the connection between me and the animal, she knows there is one, she's happy about it, and that is so fulfilling to me as her opossum. |