This guy is CRUSHING fatherhood.

The Fatherhood - Fiat 500L 12" Remix (Fiat UK) has been added as a related post - related requested by ant on that post.

You'll be fine. It's impossible to imagine what fatherhood will be like until you hold your son/daughter in your arms for the first time. I read a lot of books before my daughter was born, but the ones that helped the most weren't the ones that gave parenting advice, but instead the ones that explained the baby/child's development process.

My advice to an expecting father? You and your wife should enjoy your time together as much as possible right now. Go to the movies. Go out to dinner. See some concerts. Have lots and lots of sex while you still can. I was told by a friend that I wouldn't understand the meaning of "busy" until I had a child and looking back that was 100% correct. You and your wife won't have much alone-time (or any time for that matter) for the next couple of years unless you've got grandparents living nearby willing to babysit (we do, and even with that we're lucky if we get a once-a-month date night together).

I had always figured, "Sure, I suppose I'll have kids some day." My wife didn't really dig the idea of kids, so I figured, "Sure, we'll be fine just enjoying ourselves for the rest of our days," because we always loved the idea of seeing the world and kids would just get in the way, we thought.

After returning from our first disappointingly anticlimactic trip to Europe, I started feeling, "Wow, is that all there is to life? There has to be more." Generally I started looking forward to my deathbed and knowing I'd look back regretting that I never experienced fatherhood. The seed was planted a month later.

My second son is on the way and due 7 weeks from today, and my first son is now 20 months old. It's just not possible to completely explain to someone else how incredible and fulfilling it is, but it has already been the experience of a lifetime, and I wish I'd gotten started when I was younger. Now I've decided I'm too close to 40 to have any more, otherwise I'd have shot for a quad of small fries.

Parenthood isn't for everyone, so I don't wish it upon anyone, especially not self-centered/egocentric people who would just bring more undesirable dipshits into the world.

>> ^lucky760:

Fatherhood really has changed me. All I feel is horrified and appalled seeing that little boy potentially causing grievous injury (or at least pain) to himself. It fills my heart with anxiety.
And it really saddens me how gleefully amused people are at the sight of it.


IANAFather but - really? I'm sure it wasn't much fun but he's a kid, his body's springy and can take this. I'd check on him of course but I'd be surprised if he wasn't running around 5 minutes later. This would be much more dangerous for an adult who's less flexible.

I don't mind seeing adults do this kind of thing, but that's exactly why I waited 1 day and 17 hours to watch this. Poor kid's back. That said, it would be a freak thing if this kid was injured beyond a visit to the chiropractor.>> ^lucky760:

Fatherhood really has changed me. All I feel is horrified and appalled seeing that little boy potentially causing grievous injury to himself. It fills my heart with anxiety.
And it really saddens me how gleefully amused people are at the sight of it.

Fatherhood really has changed me. All I feel is horrified and appalled seeing that little boy potentially causing grievous injury (or at least pain) to himself. It fills my heart with anxiety.

And it really saddens me how gleefully amused people are at the sight of it.

I only wish he covered the fact, even if it is a choice, who cares? God gave people free will for a reason. The typical response is that god will judge us as a nation for allowing it. So using that as an example, since god is the perfect father, and the perfect example of fatherhood I should follow. If my one son warns the other not to misbehave and the other does anyhow, I should punish both children in different ways. I mean the one acted of his own free will to violate my rules, and the other warned of the dangers and obeyed my rules but needs punished because his brother acted improperly. If my son warns a schoolmate not to misbehave and the schoolmate does, I should punish my son for that child's misbehavior, the schoolmate I can cast off and keep from my sight forever, but my child needs punished for the behavior of another person acting of their own free will. How then should I punish him in either case?

Your video, Fatherhood is confounding the baby with new sounds., has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Men, at least some men, do have more complex feelings about fatherhood than just "woohoo it wasn't me":

"Gardner's personal struggle of establishing himself as a stockbroker while managing fatherhood and homelessness is portrayed in the 2006 motion picture The Pursuit of Happyness, starring Will Smith."

I don't understand how you came to the conclusion that one must believe that both sexes are exactly the same.

The moral relativists reached this erroneous conclusion, not I.

To believe men and women are interchangeable in relationships, that is, two men or two women are = to one man/one woman, requires serious denial of biology and sociology.

A gay woman is still a woman and thinks like a woman, not a man. The differences in the brain of a gay man are not so drastic that he is considered a woman with a male body and vice versa.

No one is questioning the reality love or commitment between gay people, myself included. I just think putting it on the same pedestal as "the norm" is bad for society.

In a similar vein, the rising acceptance of bastardhood isn't good either. The argument against the value of marriage between STRAIGHT people has been under assault: Men and women are still having children without 'the piece of paper.' What's the difference?

It turns out the difference is 'plenty'. What incentive does an unmarried couple have to stay together? How is government taxation and welfare destroying (or feebly attempting to keep together) the institution of marriage? Why are sperm donor-non-fathers and breeder-non-mothers not shunned by society anymore as being irresponsible? Is there a war against fatherhood, all the way to some kooks declaring the role of the father as unnecessary?

The claim that there would be "no adverse effects" from legalizing gay marriage is as intellectually dishonest as stating that gay couples are interchangeable with straights.

The argument for gay 'marriage' really fell apart when civil unions, which held the exact same rights as legal marriage, were eschewed in favor of forcing society to accept an inferior relationship as equal to the norm, at metaphorical gunpoint.

Canada, never a bastion of freedom to begin with, has moved from "gay acceptance" to putting people in jail for speaking out against homosexuality as immoral or otherwise wrong. That's where America is headed with this nonsense. And it IS nonsense.

I agree, Health care isn't America's #1 issue, but I definitely see it through a different lens here in Ohio. We don't really have the same sort of immigration difficulties you do. Instead, our primary NAFTA effect is that we have a large number of people being laid off as manufacturing jobs get moved to other countries. Our issue with health care here is much more about people's inability to pay for the care they need, than the care they need not being available because the system is too busy providing medical care for non-citizens.

In any case, here's Obama's stance (and possibly meaningless rhetoric) on immigration. For comparison, here's what McCain's website says about immigration. He doesn't really give specifics about what he'll do, just his assessment of what we need to think about on the issue. I've not been terribly interested in Immigration as an issue, but my own personal sense is that McCain and Obama have essentially the same plan on immigration, and McCain gets heckled by the other Republicans for that.

On NAFTA itself, this is all I'm finding at the moment, but it's probably as specific as a candidate can really be at this stage, since it involves negotiations with other countries. McCain's site is less specific still, in saying only that he "seeks to reduce barriers to trade", which I know from other sources means preserving NAFTA as is, and pushing to extend a similar agreement to Central America (CAFTA).

To the general decline of American culture, here's what Obama has to say about education, and family values. There's also this speech he gave on father's day, where he speaks about family and societal values in general.

While I'm worried about the decline of American culture, I'm not sure how much government can really do about it, beyond expanding education, trying to keep people's economic situation stable. I'd argue we also need to bring back real regulation of the media, something Obama has said he wants to do.

In any case, my post was spurred by finding two detailed, non-partisan analyses of the health care plans of the two main Presidential candidates, and I wanted to share them.

As sorry as I am to say this, no. She was born on the 22nd, and i left on the 28th. There just wasn't enough time. I feel doubly anxious to get back, but "fatherhood" hasn't set in for me yet. Although my wife made me change every one of her diapers for that week...

@J-Rova/Jonny/Farhad/Thylan
Yes the author is extrapolating/categorizing but touches upon recent developments that are a reality.
Birth control/having children does have an impact on women and men: pregnancy, giving birth and rearing a child results into hormonal and brain changes, as recent research (on other mammals (especially mammals where the father is involved in the upbringing of the child)) seems to indicate.

-Fatherhood boosts male brains (25 July 2006, New Scientist Magazine)
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19125615.400-fatherhood-boosts-male-brains.html

-Having children alters the brain (12 June 2007, NewScientist.com news service)
Roxanne Khamsi
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12043-having-children-alters-the-brain.html

-Stretch Marks for Dads: What fatherhood does to the body and the brain.
By Emily Anthes (June 14, 2007)
http://www.slate.com/id/2168389/