Over the past blog entries, we’ve discussed some very important fatherhood qualities. Each of them has a huge impact on how you feel about yourself, how your partner views you, how your baby knows you and how others perceive you. Delight is just for you. Yes, it can be shared with others but as quality this one’s for you. During this early phase, you may or may not be delighted that you impregnated a woman who may or may not be your partner/wife with whom you may or may not get along with. Even in the worse scenario, you have to find delight in even the smallest and insignificant things.
If you’re fortunate to have intentionally created this baby and deeply love your partner and have a good relationship then delight can possibly be part of your everyday experience … many delights in fact.
Delight isn’t always something that’s pretty or entertaining, sometimes it’s just how you view something which then has a lot to do with humour.
And you need to practice delight. You might not know this but each time you see a beautiful sunset or sunrise you can feel delighted if you open your heart and mind to that. Perhaps a lovely smell suddenly wafted by … feel delighted. Perhaps you saw another man be very kind to his partner or child .. delight in that.
Perhaps you saw a colour you liked … delight. Delight is all around you. Delight in the changes happening to your baby or the changes you’re seeing in the woman’s body. Delight is all around you.
If delight is new to you then you have a pleasant surprise in store. If you have lost this quality all you need to do is watch babies and young children. They delight in the smallest, simplest thing.
Your baby will delight when he/she sees your face. Delight is the natural state of being. Too often we’ve lost that quality as we’ve grown and taken on more responsibilities but you never have to lose that even when loaded with responsibility. You can choose to always keep that and even grow it more. Delight has to do with chuckling and laughing. It’s our natural state and does not have to be taught but it does need to be nurtured.
One of the most amazing things about being a dad or mom is that you get to see the world again from the view of a child. You get to have a second childhood along with your children. If you have more than one then you can have as many delightful childhoods as children.
Your bottom line
Breathe, delight, laugh, chuckle. Enjoy.
Head to Udemy for all the Fathers-to-be Pregnancy Academy courses. Then at 24 weeks of pregnancy, come back here for the online birth 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.