How Does a Man Change When He Becomes a Father?

It was one of those gorgeous autumn days with the trees exploding in vibrant colors and the cool, crisp air filling my lungs with the taste of fall.

I was walking one of my favorite trails with my daughter, pulling her along in a classic Radio Flyer wagon. 

As I stopped to pick up an amber colored leaf to show my daughter, she climbed out of the wagon and kicked up a big old pile of leaves.

Her simple joy at the sound of the leaves cracking took me back to my childhood and I couldn’t help but crack a smile.

Life could not have felt more perfect in that moment, but my bliss was to be short lived.

My daughter had just entered the “terrible twos” and had transformed into possibly the most stubborn toddler in the history of mankind.

Right on schedule, she had now decided it was time to make daddy’s life miserable!

When I asked my daughter to get back into the wagon to continue our walk, she just shook her head and giggled. I calmly explained it was time to go and she had to either walk or get back in the wagon.

My daughter’s response was to sit on the ground, because why not!

I knelt to try and “reason” with her, but this hardheaded little human only became more defiant, until… SMACK!

My daughter had just slapped the taste out of my mouth, and I was so angry that I picked her up and spanked her – hard!

As I watched the tears flow from my daughter’s eyes and her wails echoed up and down the trail, I had instant regret. I looked at my hand, which was still throbbing from smacking her ass, and felt like an absolute ghoul.

This was becoming a disturbing pattern with me now, where I got angry with her and used a spanking to get my point across quickly, without having to find another way.

Sadly, I was becoming the kind of father I made a blood oath with myself never to become.

Becoming a father will severely test your character 

I grew up being physically abused by my father, and as a young teen, I promised myself that I would be a better man than my dad. When my time came to have kids, I had fully committed to never laying a finger on them.

The thought of my future children living in terror of me, as I did my own father, made my stomach turn.

Now here I was, a full-grown man breaking that promise to my younger self. I knew the teenage me would be beyond disappointed in my behavior, and I had to take a hard look in the mirror.

Where did I go wrong? 

What the hell kind of father was I going to become if I stayed on this path?

The truth was hard to deny – I had to man up and become a better dad. This decision wasn’t just for my daughter’s sake, but my own as well. 

It took an abundance of self-improvement, but that was the last time I ever spanked my daughter.

Fatherhood challenged me in ways my younger self could never have imagined, and in many ways, becoming a dad revealed a side of me that I didn’t like.

I had to learn to be more selfless, to give my children the kind of patience only a loving father can pull off, and most importantly of all, that I must always keep my temper under control.

You will find that fatherhood will challenge you in many of the same ways, or in areas you can’t even contemplate right now.

Once your baby is born, I can promise you there will be many days when you show the worst side of yourself.

The first step to overcoming this is acceptance.

Don’t be in denial about the personal warts that fatherhood will reveal to you. By doing this, you can confront these issues head on and become the kind of father you hope to be. 

Trust me on this, no dad (not even one!) is perfect. 

Maybe you admire your own father or another man in your life who you want to emulate, but never fool yourself into thinking they didn’t have their own roadblocks to overcome.

Don’t be afraid to talk to these guys about their journeys through fatherhood, and you will discover they had their own demons to overcome before becoming good dads!

You must find your own path through fatherhood

As a first-time dad, I desperately wanted to be like my maternal grandfather and become the kind of man and father that he was… ultra-patient, loving and adored by his family!

However, it became a burden trying to live up to the ideal of what I believed my grandfather to be. In a way, I lionized him as the ultimate father, but in reality, I was just doing myself a great disservice.

While my grandfather died long before I became a dad, I’m sure he would have sat me down and told me about his own struggles, and that he was in fact not even close to perfect.

Don’t be in denial about the personal warts that fatherhood will reveal to you. By doing this, you can confront these issues head on and become the kind of father you hope to be. 

I slowly started to realize that I had to cut my own path through fatherhood, and not set unrealistic expectations for myself. Being a dad was hard enough without me trying to live up to some ideal image of what I believed a father was.

The truth of it is, we can’t ever be anyone, but who we are. No matter how much we wish to be someone else, it’s simply not going to happen.

So never apologize for being you (unless you are an asshole!). If you are willing to be a good father and keep holding yourself accountable for your mistakes, you will eventually carve your own path as well.

The secret to being a great father is to keep evolving

One of the biggest changes any guy must go through when becoming a father, is learning to believe in yourself.

This is a difficult concept for many of us, especially when you are a first-time dad filled with anxiety and self-doubt!

However, your confidence will grow with all the little successes, like figuring out how to change a diaper without getting crap on your fingers!

Then you move on to the heavy stuff such as circumcision, vaccines and other life altering choices you must make as a parent.

However, this is just the beginning of these types of decisions, but your confidence will grow year over year as you become adjusted to handling the duties of a father.

When you become a confident decision maker for your child and keep holding yourself accountable for your mistakes, you will continue to evolve and grow right along with your child.

All great dads continue to change for the better over time, and they never remain static.

This is truly one of the biggest secrets you will ever learn about mastering fatherhood!