All new dads have their own superhuman abilities, but in order to tap into the most important one, you must put aside your fears and learn to trust yourself!
My family was enjoying a gorgeous, sun filled day at my uncle’s farm when my well-honed daddy sense started to hum in my head… louder and louder!
I was exploring my new surroundings on an ATV and soaking in the breathtaking landscape, when my wife and daughter rode past on another ATV, snapping me out of my euphoric state.
I was worried because my wife was letting my 11-year-old daughter steer the ATV. I jammed on the brakes and spun around to warn them, but foolishly changed my mind. They were going quite slowly, and both had on helmets, I reasoned to myself.
I headed back to the farmhouse and did a few laps around the fields, then pulled into the garage and killed the switch. As I was dismounting the ATV, I noticed my wife and daughter turning into the driveway just beyond the maze of cornfields… then my worst nightmare happened…
My daughter jerked the handlebars too hard to the left, causing the ATV to instantly bounce on its side!
My wife and daughter were violently thrown off the ATV and went rolling like heavy tumbleweeds across the dusty pathway. My heart popped through my chest like a scene from Alien, and I sprinted towards them screaming out for the rest of my family to come help.
Through nothing but pure luck, my daughter escaped the accident with only a few small scratches, and my wife was left with a nasty bruise on her hip (which she claimed to deserve for letting my daughter steer!).
When I first saw the tires sway and tip, I instantly regretted ignoring my gut feeling that my wife should have been driving the ATV.
If fortunate had not smiled on us that afternoon, my decision would have haunted me for the rest of my life. Unfortunately, my wife was inconsolable because she also ignored her better senses when my daughter begged to drive.
My Best Advice For First Time Dads
When you have a baby, you will start to develop and hone your parental instincts. Eventually it becomes like a superpower that you can’t quite explain, but these gut feelings will be vital to your role as a father.
Our society makes a big deal about maternal instincts, but sadly you don’t often hear about the wonders of paternal instincts.
Believe me when I tell you, a father’s intuition can be just as strong as our counterparts. I am not trying to be disparaging towards mothers, but I want you to understand just how powerful a father’s sixth sense can be with his child.
I wish I could tell you that listening to your daddy sense comes naturally or easy, but that isn’t always the case.
Often, when a guy has his first child, he tends not to trust his burgeoning fatherly instincts and may defer all the important decisions to his partner. Again, it’s almost like guys are brought up to believe that moms have it all figured out – even first-time mothers.
However, allow me to let you in on a big secret – new moms are just as scared as new dads!
It doesn’t matter if you are a mom or a dad, you don’t just magically know how to take care of a baby.
That is something that is learned over time, and through this dedication to your child, you will develop and sharpen a parental intuitiveness that will help keep her safe.
This is why it’s so important that from day one, you help to make decisions for your baby with your partner. Not only will this help to take pressure off your partner, but it will start the process of learning how to trust yourself and make important choices for your child.
Granted, your instincts may not always line up with how your partner may feel, but that doesn’t automatically mean you are wrong (or vice versa). There will be countless decisions you have to make for your child that involve both a heavy gray area and comprising with your partner.
I can also promise you that the day will come when you regret ignoring the inner voice screaming inside of you. It may be a decision that you have time to mull over, or it may be one that you only have moments to make.
No matter the time constraints involved, making a really bad call can be an emotionally crippling experience for any father.
I wish I had a suitable answer why even when a father has a well-honed daddy sense, that sometimes he ignores his gut instincts. On various occasions I will get a conflicting feeling that goes against what I feel is best and ignore what my gut is telling me.
As an example, my two biggest regrets for ignoring my paternal instincts (ATV incident and a sledding accident with my son), was done out of guilt. I felt like me stopping my kids from doing something that felt dangerous to me, would have ruined their fun.
Both of my kids could have been badly hurt or even killed in both of those situations, and that would have been my fault for ignoring my best instincts. When this happens, you feel like a shitty father that makes poor decisions, but the reality is that even the best dad among us will make some bad calls.
I know for every bad choice I make with my kids, my fatherly intuition has allowed me to make a plethora of good calls. There is no way to quantify something like that though, because generally when you make sound decisions, there aren’t repercussions to contemplate.
Ultimately, being in charge of another life is a scary business. I’m well over a decade into this daddy thing, and trust me when I say, I understand the anxiety you may feel as a new dad. However, you can’t let that paralyze you from making decisions for your child and trusting your gut.
It takes an enormous amount of courage for any new dad to tap into his fatherly intuition and act on it. Without this leap of faith in yourself, you will never reach your full potential as a great dad.
All dads have fear, but the best of us overcome it for the good of our children!
