Periodically we need to bring all these fatherhood qualities together for you. In Phase 1 of pregnancy in your journey through ‘becoming’ a father to ‘being’ a father you are being asked to choose your own personal growth because your baby and the woman in your life are now on a biological imperative to do their own growing.

Being forced to grow as is happening to the woman in your life is not always pleasant. It’s hard work to have no time to rest and recoup. Consider this.

While you’re at work paying attention to the details of your work you can forget that you are pregnant or else its in the background of your mind. On the other hand, the woman who is in your life can never forget, she is always reminded of being pregnant at every single nano-second from now on until birth.

She is forced to face this reality and it requires her to build all the qualities you are building because once your baby is born you cannot forget them for one moment. So, it’s important to grow this new quality along side and using the previous ones.

See what needs to be done for yourself

There are now two parts of you … the man you are and with whom you are familiar and then the father you are becoming. Fitting those two images together is the purpose of this blog and should be your goal. You want to arrive at fatherhood (the moment of birth) feeling ready for the next second, next minute, next hour, next day, next week, next month, next year of being a father. Fatherhood like motherhood is a state of constant change so learning how to change rapidly without bringing chaos into your life is important.

This means you can right now bring kindness, patience, awareness, attention to detail to this new quality of seeing what needs to be done … and doing it without too much procrastination.

Seeing what needs to be done in your life, for yourself, right now is essential. Like the woman in your life you need to pamper yourself both your body and your mind. And yes, like the woman, you need to pamper yourself in order to be able to renew yourself.

Men have yang energy

This yang energy is limited and can be drained. Female energy in yin and stems from the perpetual energy of the earth and it’s capacity for renewal. When male and female energy is balanced, then the yang energy feeds the yin energy and the yin energy becomes accessible to the yang energy. They work hand in hand.

Often we hear that women burn themselves out because they do too much. That’s true. It’s also true that men burn themselves out by doing too much as well. Both men and women must take time to nurture themselves and then nurture each other. This means you must learn to see what needs to be done within you to do just that. What are you not doing to nurture yourself?

Of course this quality also has to do with your home. One woman wanted her husband to wash the dishes. He said: ‘If you work on the car’. He didn’t like working on the car but he believed it was his ‘job’. She actually wanted to learn so they worked on their car together which opened him up to doing more around their house.

Keep in mind that your home, if you share it with the woman in your life, is no different because she and other kids are present than if it was your own home and you lived alone. You must be willing to see what needs to be done and then do it.

This is a wonderful quality and one you can teach your children. First you’ll teach them to help you do things(from 9 months onward). Then you’ll teach them to do something themselves(from 2-3 onwards). Finally, you get to teach them to see what needs to be done and do it (from about 10 onwards).

By the time a young person reaches puberty they should have those three elements well developed.

Your bottom line

There are basically two types of dads:

  1. Dads who go to work, come home, sit down, drink a beer, watch TV and their family just spins around them. They see their role as ‘father’ as go out, make a living, bring home the bacon and the rest of their time is their own.
  2. Dads who go to work, open the door when they come home, open their arms to their children and partner and embrace them, get stuck into what’s happening in their home and totally get involved with everything in their home. They see their outside work as what gives them the ability to come home and totally enjoy building a life together.

Which type of dad/man do you want to be remembered as?

Head to Udemy for all the Fathers-to-be Pregnancy Academy courses. Then at 24 weeks of pregnancy, come back here for the online birthing class and start with the birth preparation and birth-coaching skills … all developed by hundreds of dads and moms.

Birthing Better skills are housed in Common Knowledge Trust.