Caveman Love

Posted under NOTEBOOK

Caveman Love Becoming a Dad

Not all dads fall in love with their baby right away. There, I said it.

Now, I can see that you’re reaching for your pitchforks and torches. Before you light that Zippo, hear me out.

Dad blogs are full of images of new fathers cooing over their babies and expressing tearful joy over their new paternal role. And while that immediate, Hallmark-style love may be felt by a great number of new dads, it failed to appear in me right away. And I know I’m not that unique, despite what my grandmother once told me.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved my boys from the second I saw their little fingers on the ultrasound monitor. But, my love initially manifested in a sort of hunter-gatherer thing. I had babies to care for, so my mind and heart snapped to behavior that left me fighting the urge to spear the neighbor’s Welsh corgi for an evening feast cooked over an open fire at the mouth of our cave. And that cave was a lower unit in a duplex, so I’m sure the landlord would’ve taken issue.

That version of love””my version””appeared nowhere online. In my world, those tears of fatherly joy would get you singled out for dinner by a damn saber-toothed tiger. Besides, I had no time for joy. There were pelts to clean, yurts to build.

My love felt honest and powerful, but not warm and enriching as it seemed for all other new dads. This meant, to me, that I was doomed to live as a terrible and emotionally distant father. It took a visit from a friend to realize my reaction was more common than parenting sites had me believe. He described his love for his newborn daughter in dispassionate terms of protecting her, fighting for her. Caveman love. I saw I was not special and that my grandmother was, as I stated, a boldfaced liar.

Dads who experience what I did likely feel the same shame and fear while scanning the online community of parenting blogs. They see the beaming dads, they read the stories of unbridled joy, but don’t identify.

But, can you imagine the reaction if any of them presented things as they actually were? If you’re having trouble, just scan the comments section below this post.

Just as Facebook users statistically tend to present the best version of themselves, dad bloggers tend to present the best version of their fatherly experience. And though some may be honest about the challenges they face, none would dare admit their love for their newborn was anything but cinematic. And this polished claim causes harm by perpetuating an unrealistic standard, the same way porn made me think Pizza Delivery Man was the best job in the world.

The initial shock of suddenly being a dad wore off for me, eventually. As it did, I was able to connect with my deeply emotional love and, yes, tearful joy. Still, because of the false perfection presented by most parenting sites, I vowed to remain as honest as possible on my site about the unflattering emotions (or lack of emotions or seemingly wrong emotions) that can accompany fatherhood.

I also offer a recipe for a nice slow-roasted Welsh corgi.

David Vienna of TheDaddyComplex.com with his sons
 

The father of twin boys, David Vienna is a screenwriter, playwright, former journalist, and spent a few years writing for reality television. He covers parenting issues at TheDaddyComplex.com and The Huffington Post.

 

56 Comments

  • Nick says:
    at 6:04 am

    I’m glad to see this. We’re different beasts than the moms. Here are some points that I’ve learned over the last 6 years – I have a 6yr old boy and a 2yr old girl.
    I love my kids but I love them differently than my wife does.
    Play with your kids – girl or boy – like a man. Distinguish yourself from mom. Toss them in the air, drop them (safely on something soft like a bed), wrestle, fish, and get dirty. Teach them to hit and catch a baseball, ride a bike, and “rub dirt on it” when they fall. Drive fast (legally) and take that turn in the minivan a little harder and faster. Teach them about tools and saws and guns (if that’s your thing).

    Reply
  • Aaron says:
    at 7:19 am

    Agreed. My son just turned 10 months old last week and I’m still trying to figure out exactly “how” to love him. Playing with him is never an issue; I’d say it’s more the ongoing daily tasks I have more trouble with, like remembering which food I should use to feed him or the 27 different things I need to bring when we leave the house with him. The desire’s certainly there, but the execution gets a little muddy at times. I’m just hoping that the emotion will be enough to carry over until I’m able to get a better handle on the situation.

    Reply
    • Ashly says:
      at 3:52 pm

      Aaron,
      If you have mom around, trust me she will remember the 27 different things to take, just ask her to keep the bag packed for you and she should be so excited that you want to try to stay organized that she should willingly do so! LOL

      Reply
  • Carrie says:
    at 9:18 am

    Oh my gosh. I love this so much. Because MANY women go through the same thing, but are too afraid to admit it. And when we DO admit it, we are pounced on and called bad mothers and that something is wrong with us. More people need to talk open and honestly about this!

    Reply
    • Amanda H. says:
      at 9:38 am

      I too love to hear parents, both moms and dads, speak honestly and openly about the way they love their children. I hate that everyone is expected to have this deep, sappy, tears in their eyes love as soon as their child cries for the first time. That’s not always how it is and it’s a shame that parents feel like they are less-than because they don’t have that.

      Reply
    • Nemo says:
      at 8:32 pm

      Thank God, I thought I was gonna be have to be the first mom to post that I felt the same thing. When I found out I was pregnant I wasn’t very excited, I wasn’t scared either. I felt nothing and thoight something was wrong with me. There was a little bit more excitement when I found out what I was having (a gorgeous baby girl) but even then, not as much as other expectant mothers.
      Even after I had given birth, I was thrilled to finally meet my baby and hold her in my arms. Later that night I even cried happy tears watching her sleep so peacefully and so beautifully. But I still felt like I was lacking in my love and excitement. There was something missing. All that love grows with time, I understand that now. But for a while I felt so confused because I hadn’t heard a story like this before.

      Reply
    • Liz says:
      at 9:23 am

      Right there with you. It took me a good week or two to really start feeling the mushy stuff. Bringing a new life into the world is traumatic stuff, physically and mentally, and while I felt the primal “protect baby, feed baby, keep baby clean” type of duty-love, it took getting to know Mina to truly love her.

      Reply
    • Christina says:
      at 3:06 pm

      Right there with you! My first was all mushy, teary-eyed love at first sight. But my daughter (who I was very excited to have), I was very subdued… I thought she was ugly, even with everyone telling me how pretty she was (she really is a very pretty girl…not sure where she gets it…). It took me a good month before I saw her with “mom” eyes.

      Reply
  • Jester Queen says:
    at 9:37 am

    You’re going to have to insert your own negative press comments to make that comment about the comments section come true! 😉 I absolutely agree. I will say that when my daughter was born, my husband was smitten. But he doesn’t do ‘smitten’ with hearts and flowers and poems. He showed up in the hospital room with – I’m NOT making this up – a map of the fifty states and snuggled her while reciting the state capitals. (I had completely forgotten this by the way). I’m sure he had no idea why he was doing this. But I think it was that primal need to pass along his passions (we call him Map Man).

    Reply
    • David Vienna says:
      at 12:08 pm

      That is hysterical. And as for adding my own negative comments, I think the Photoshopped image turning me into a caveman is negative enough.

      Reply
    • Liz says:
      at 9:27 am

      That is awesome. My husband told me that he spent a sleepless night watching over our restless baby and having an in-depth ‘discussion’ with her about superhero archetypes.

      Reply
  • Blabby says:
    at 9:38 am

    I wish all new Moms would read this. I am pretty sure my husband had this exact experience of new parenthood, although he never outwardly said it. He went into immediate hunter/gatherer mode, seemed to work more and harder, and seemed totally frightened of the baby and unsure how to actually care for her. This caused a great deal of resentment and frustration in me, a new Mom recovering from a c-section and breastfeeding a newborn, and I spent a lot of time feeling like he wasn’t holding up his end of the parenting bargain. I now see he was going through his own adjustment to fatherhood and responding the only way he knew how– “taking care of us” from a food/shelter/resource perspective. I’m happy to report that as the months wore on, his fear and uncertainty seemed to lessen and he is a much more active and participatory parent (but he also still struggles with the whole “what to feed her” and “what to bring in the diaper bag” conundrum, even though she’s now 2+ years old!)

    Reply
  • Lucia says:
    at 9:41 am

    Ohhh, I felt the same when I had Joaquín in my arms for the first time. It was the kind of love that brings responsibility but, definitly, not tearful. And yep, I am a mom… the get in love and etc came later… the caveman (women)thing has not wore off.

    Reply
  • Vincent aka @CuteMonsterDad says:
    at 9:45 am

    Thanks for the healthy slice of honesty Dave. Your experience is all too common but not usually on display by most for public consumption due to fear of being judged. Maybe we all now move another incremental step closer to not succumbing to external pressures.

    Reply
  • I'm the Slime says:
    at 10:21 am

    I have a 2.5 year old son who I adore with every fiber of my being, but it didn’t start that way exactly. I think I feel about him how almost every dad feels. I play with him, watch hockey and baseball with him, take him on long trips, discipline him, feed him, bathe him, etc, and feel 100%, err 99%, err pretty confident of how to deal with him. I didn’t at the beginning …

    I now have a 3-month old son and it’s the same thing. I mean, I love the kid wildly, but Mom nurses him and provides for most of his basic needs, which is all he cares about at this point. I am basically there in a support role for mom. He’s too small to really play with, too small to feed, too small to describe when a player is offside. And that’s not to say there aren’t moments when those feelings grow.

    And I know from experience it will change, but there is not that intense emotional connection built through common experience I feel for #1 yet. I don’t feel bad about it because the majority of my ‘self-imposed role’ doesn’t kick in for a while.

    Reply
  • DaddyFiles says:
    at 10:29 am

    I liked this right up until “Just as Facebook users statistically tend to present the best version of themselves, dad bloggers tend to present the best version of their fatherly experience. And though some may be honest about the challenges they face, none would dare admit their love for their newborn was anything but cinematic. And this polished claim causes harm by perpetuating an unrealistic standard, the same way porn made me think Pizza Delivery Man was the best job in the world.”

    It’s fine that you felt this way. There’s no shame in that and it doesn’t make you a bad father. But just because you feel that way doesn’t mean the rest of us dad bloggers are falsely perpetuating an unrealistic level of love for our kids. I did feel that instant connection and there was nothing exaggerated or cinematic about it. It was very real and unbelievably profound.

    I think this post was good, but also ended up as sort of a missed opportunity to make your point without unnecessarily putting others down.

    Reply
    • David Vienna says:
      at 11:45 am

      Good point. I certainly don’t mean to put anyone down. I just find that creating sweeping and unfair generalizations about people I don’t know makes things easier for me. (←Not a true statement.)

      Reply
  • Ypsi says:
    at 10:32 am

    I think this is dead on. I also think it’s more of a thing for first-time parents/dads. My husband was also smitten when our daughter was born, but it was more in a protective/hardworking/studious kind of way.

    I was the one who was all gooey (until we left the hospital and the colic kicked in). So for the first few weeks all I did was sob and nurse the baby 24/7 — I also had wicked PPD. So he really had to “take the wheel” with everything else for a while.

    He was a lot more relaxed as far as the hunter/gatherer mode went when our 2nd and 3rd were born, and he had btdt with the newborn/colic/crazy wife, so he was more of the “lovey” parent than I was with those two in the first weeks (PPD and colic again; all 3 of our babies were insane for their first few months).

    Reply
    • David Vienna says:
      at 11:41 am

      Having your first baby (or in my case, babies) really is a trial-by-fire scenario. I like your theory, seems solid. Maybe if we’d had another kid, I’d have reacted differently.

      Reply
  • Carter says:
    at 11:04 am

    You, sir, are a cad.

    (Not really. I just felt bad that no one besides Aaron was ripping you in the comments. You seemed to be looking forward to that so much.)

    Reply
  • ihopeiwinatoaster says:
    at 11:28 am

    Can you substitute squirrel for the corgi in that recipe? I love this piece. Honest and funny and heartfelt, great stuff…

    Reply
  • Claudia says:
    at 11:31 am

    Honestly, I think it happens to both men and women and like someone else mentioned, we women are scorned if we’re not instantly in love with our babies. I had the same instant feeling: Protect this baby with my life but that gooey-out-of-your-mind in love didn’t set in so fast and with PPD, I was emotional about EVERYTHING. My son is now 19 months old and if I even start thinking about his sweet smile and wicked cute laugh, I will start crying because my love for him is insane. I remember reading somewhere once that for a lot of people, loving a new person, including one we created, is just like meeting someone for the first time and getting to know them and then falling in love. I think there’s some truth to that.

    Reply
    • David Vienna says:
      at 11:39 am

      That’s a great way to look at it. When I first “met” my boys, I thought “If this were a party and they were guests, I’d kick out for crying too much. And all the pooping.”

      Reply
  • Emma says:
    at 11:46 am

    As a mother, I was appalled to find myself distinctly not in love with my son immediately after he was born. I was told it was very normal and that it would happen eventually, not to worry. And as the first several weeks went by I was terrified I would be the only mother to not fall in love with her child. But it did eventually happen… I’m not sure when, sometime between the second and third month I found myself awestruck with love for him. It’s a scary feeling, but I think it is far more common than our society would have us believe. Thanks for sharing your experience. It helps to hear others admitting to these feelings, as I still have some amount of shame buried deep inside me.
    BTW, I am so maddeningly in love with my son now it makes me naucious sometimes. I actually am not sure I want to have a second child because I’m afraid of any love being diverted from him. I just want to shower him with every bit of love my body can come up with for his entire life. I guess that’s just parenthood 😉

    Reply
  • charlie says:
    at 12:12 pm

    I was overwhelmed with emotion when my son was born but I don’t think I could call it love as I think of it now. I too had that “responsibility” love in regards to care and protection, but this new little guy was a stranger to me and a stranger in my home. Not a total stranger mind you, like some random person off the street, but a stranger nonetheless. It takes a while for me to warm up to strangers and it was similar with my son. However, as have gotten to know him and connect with him, the love I feel is a true fatherly love. Society dictates norms about how we should feel but feelings don’t always fit into those norms. We tend to forget that everyone experiences life differently, even shared experiences.

    Reply
  • Chris says:
    at 12:16 pm

    I was waiting for that lightning bolt to hit me too, the day our daughter was born. It didn’t, and all I thought of was providing for and protecting her and her mom. I felt guilty for not falling in love with her right away, tried not to let anyone else know how I felt, and waited patiently for the day when it would happen. Then one day I confessed how I felt to a female co-worker who is a mother, and she told me she felt the same way at first. She didn’t “fall in love” with her child until about 3 months in. I was surprised and relieved that not only was I not alone in feeling this way, but that a mother could feel that way too. But gradually as time moved on and I got used to being a dad, I fell in love with my daughter. And I couldn’t be happier.

    Reply
  • Ben says:
    at 12:29 pm

    In all honesty, I don’t really understand the instant emotional bond some people have — to a being they’ve never met. My reactions to the ultrasounds were along the lines of, “Oh cool, there’s a little person there.” After birth I was more concerned with my wife’s well-being than 10 lbs of screaming. I was protective as hell — I would have fought off bears with my hands (and won dammit) but there wasn’t much of a loving bond. At 14 months that kid is my joy now. I don’t remember when it changed and it wasn’t fast, overnight thing. But after investing so much time into Captain Adorable it’d take a lot more than a few hungry bears to pull me away from him.

    Reply
  • Marija says:
    at 12:42 pm

    “Tearful joy”, “work and enriching love” – hey, that is big taboo and dogma for moms too. As 2x mom, I can attest, my initial reactions were entirely different from “melt away from sweetness”. And both me and my kids lived to tell and enjoy our family.

    Reply
  • DJ says:
    at 1:16 pm

    It happens to moms, too. I remember holding my hours-old daughter while talking on the phone with my mom. (Mom was still in another state and would be joining us in a couple of weeks.) “Don’t you just love her?” gushed my mom. Gulp. “Ummm…I’m just getting to know her?” I said, anxiety kicking in. Weeks later, I found myself singing to my baby, “I love you more today than yesterday, but not as much as tomorrow,” and I started to bawl. I know, I know- that song isn’t about parental love, but I was so relieved by those lyrics. Enjoy your sons!

    Reply
  • angel says:
    at 2:29 pm

    this man in the photo looks like a monkey, But he’s so sexy. I want to kiss him, even if his wife gets jealous.

    Reply
  • Adrienn says:
    at 2:45 pm

    This is a great post. I love the honesty, and it totally makes sense. I had similar feelings of not-totally-emotionally-connected-lovingly to my second daughter when she was born, but my love grew daily. I had to melt into it.

    Reply
  • Wendy says:
    at 2:51 pm

    I loved my babies, but it was more like survival mode at first. The ‘falling IN love’ part came when they smiled at me. Hey, what can I say, I’m selfish. I needed to know that they knew they were loved, and loved me back. 😉

    Reply
  • Dr Laughlin says:
    at 3:12 pm

    Here’s the thing. This has a lot to do with how much you feel the baby relies on you. It has to be just the right amount. Too little, and there’s disconnect, too much and its overwhelming enough to cause depression, or “the blues “.

    I think, for most, this is more common with the first child. Not knowing what something you’ve created could possibly look like and seeing it for the first time, it takes while to absorb, and while you’re trying to absorb it, it’s changing features. Personality takes a while to develop and get used to.

    This is most difficult with premature babies,NICU babies. Here you have the tiniest humans imaginable, fighting for their lives, you’re left helpless, but know they desperately need to hear your voices, even though you can’t always recognize their response. They need you more than you can possibly fathom and often times its too early in their development for you to even touch them when that’s what they need the most.

    Most parents go through phases of disconnect, it doesn’t just happen at their child’s birth, it happens throughout raising them too. Every once in a while you step out of your bond and blinded love and think to yourself, who is this person? Especially once they’re subject to outsiders and peer intervention, or even relatives they spend too much time with. Sometimes it’s caused by things they picked up from a tv show.

    Don’t think they don’t feel the same about you. You’re the voices they’ve heard outside the womb for months, all the sudden they’re thrown into this miraculous, yet terrifying, outside world. Perhaps you change your hairstyle, put on an ugly hat, smell like b.o. or alcohol, put glasses on, got adult braces on your teeth, broke your arm and are wearing a cast, etc. All these things can frighten your baby. Imagine matching the voice you love with an ugly face or bad smell. We’re not all blessed with never-ending good looks. Perhaps you’re uglier than your baby’s eyes can handle. It may take some getting used to. Then again, not all baby’s are cute either, perhaps yours isn’t as cute as you expected.

    Our 12 year old daughter recently confided that our now five year old son was, in her opinion, an ugly baby. We thought he was adorable. Everyone has their own opinions. Not all people think every baby is cute just because it’s a baby, some babies have some ugliness to grow out of, kind of like when all children get to be around 8 years old and their mouth is half baby, half adult, and part empty. They all look awkward at that stage. I never understood how teachers can choose to teach grades two and three,a bunch of freaks. All of them! I never thought I’d be so blinded for love of my own children that I wouldn’t recognize if one of my own were ugly. Looking back at some photos I thought were so adorable at the time, I think to myself, what was I thinking? That was an awful picture, not even portraying the average everyday cuteness of that child. Then I considered my daughter’s opinion of my son, went back to his newborn pictures, and I still think he’s the cutest of cute and then I compared them to hers and realized that he was even more cute than she was. Perhaps she was jealous. I found that what freaks her out about him as a newborn was that he was preemie, she found it gross. The tiny body with oversized head, she even said he looked like an alien. Preemie babies also have dark eyes. It scared her. I can understand that. I still think he was a super adorable baby, but I remember I did have my own moment of terror in his physical appearance as well.

    The first time I changed his diaper in the NICU, I remember having to grab a nurse and ask what was wrong with my baby, why he was deformed and no-one had told me and how would he ever sit or walk? He was so skinny and premature that he had no body fat, to the extent that he had no butt. There were no cheeks. His bottom was just a round ball with a tiny hole in it. They had to explain to me that it was just a lack of body fat and that it will fill out and cheeks will eventually form. And they did. My next son was born even more premature, so I was ready for that, but he wasn’t as long as my previous and being shorter, he had body fat and butt cheeks. He looked chubby for a preemie in comparison to our older son at that stage in the game. I remember other NICU parents and even staff looking at us funny because we seemed so calm and collected showing little concern. To us,we were very happy with the outcome. He looked healthy to us and had hardly any problems. It wasn’t long before the nurses were commenting on how he was just like a newborn, just tiny, not like a preemie. He could roll over, he was very strong, and he could even scoot to the top of the inclined bed in an army crawl. He was physically stronger and more advanced and mobile than most newborns born on schedule. He still impresses us daily. He’s our first child to love fruits and veggies. He’s 15 months old and rides a skateboard! He’s got a great sense of humor and is always happy. He’s the best thing that’s happened to this family. He’s a joy everyday!

    Reply
  • Whitney {Rookie Moms} says:
    at 3:12 pm

    Great post. I also didn’t feel the love upon meeting my son. When I forewarned a younger friend, she blamed it on my c-section. Then I punched her in the face.

    When my second child was born, I felt love more quickly. I don’t think it had to do with the method by which she was born (vbac), but that I already internalized my role as mother.

    David is so talented. And that photo of swaddled boys sleeping with Daddy? I die.

    Reply
    • David Vienna says:
      at 3:55 pm

      Whitney, you are my favorite person on the Internet… right now… this may change if anyone posts a new cat gif.

      Reply
  • AKD says:
    at 4:36 pm

    My husband was also surprised that he didn’t feel the huge rush of love for our son right away in the delivery room. It was definitely a slow-burn kind of thing. I can still remember his face right after the baby was born and the hundreds of people in the room whisked this screaming blob away to be poked and prodded (why were there so many people? everyone seemed to have a shadow that day). My husband was frozen with this look of shock, wonder, “this is really kind of gross” on his face. I hissed at him, lying flat on my back epiduralized – “go stand next to the baby! watch what they are doing!” I wanted the kid to feel that we were looking out for him from moment #1. Even if they were pricking his foot for a blood sample and giving him shots. Waaah!

    Reply
  • Marcy says:
    at 5:18 pm

    I felt the exact same way with my first kid– and I had that great, no-meds, vaginal birth so “birth type” wasn’t a factor. I remember being elated to meet him, and then when he was on my chest thinking… “Um, what do I DO?” I felt this primal urge to protect him and do everything right for him as far as taking care of him, but it took a couple months before I would look at him and feel that swoony, gushy, LOVE.

    Reply
  • Jessica says:
    at 10:44 pm

    Great post. I love honesty in parent blogging.
    I admit, and this is another perspective on the issue, I sort of hounded my husband (unfairly) when our first was born. Before we left the hospital, I kept poking around the issue to see how he felt. “Don’t you love him?” “How do you feel?” “Talk to me!” Give me a break, I was young and dreamy about life in general. But the point is that I was concerned as a mother, that my husband was going to…what? disapprove and leave us? No, that’s ridiculous, he’s an amazing father but I think it’s instinct to WANT to love your child immediately, but sort of irrational. I was probably insecure about my unstable emotions and wanted to know that I wasn’t alone. I can tell you, the second goes much more smoothly.

    Reply
  • Kenny says:
    at 4:37 pm

    Although my kids were born in 2006, I had not yet discovered parenting blogs, especially dad blogs. Of this I’m so thankful. It allowed me to avoid the entire bullshit Hallmark version of new fatherhood that you mention. It also helped that my husband already had two kids so he painted a very clear & realistic picture of how the journey would begin. Still, the first time we walked thru the front door of our house carrying the twins, I thought, “Oh, shit. What do I do now?”

    Thanks for another terrific & honest post.

    Reply
  • Desiree says:
    at 5:45 pm

    I think maybe it turns out that I’m actually a dad. My world is shaken.

    Reply
  • Jay says:
    at 7:33 am

    Amen Brother!
    I don’t care if it is FB or in person no one admits to being anything less than the best of themselves but WE ALL feel the panic of not living up to the Utopian Mom/Dad. Thanks for the honesty, we all might do it more if we didn’t think Child Services would show up if we are anything less than perfect. Confession – my 2 month old was inconsolable the other night and I told him he was being a total butthead. My wife looked at me like I was the worst parent ever. But hey he is a baby – he doesn’t even speak english! I guess I should have made coo-cooing sounds for the next 3 hours and stood on my head to console him but I am just a guy doing the best he can….
    thanks again….

    Reply
  • Laurie says:
    at 5:30 pm

    Wow, what a great post! Those are some amazingly beautiful boys!! Whoa!

    Reply
  • Heather says:
    at 10:42 am

    My son scared me. I knew I loved him intensely but felt I wasn’t ready to give him what he needed. When my daughter was born, I cried. I was overflowing with intense, mind blowing love that I thought I could die. When our second daughter was born- I resented her. I was so close with my other children that I was worried there wasn’t enough love. I was determined to breast feed (as I had trouble with the first two), which made it worse, having to be a buffet at her disposal. I felt no connection to her. My husband would tell me it will pass and I would cry, worried it wouldn’t. And at 3 weeks old, she smiled at me. And that moment I melted, bubbly hearts and unicorns with rainbow farts and glitter vomit exploded all around us.

    Of course, now my husband and are convinced that it was a primal red head thing- we were sizing each other up (I’m a red head, our son is a red head, first daughter is blonde, and our now 2 year old girl is a red head).

    Reply
  • Christian Toto says:
    at 4:28 pm

    The first time I saw my son Elijah he looked like a bad animatronic toy from an ’80s movie. Granted, he was about five seconds old at the time, but there it is. My wife felt otherwise, natch. Love doesn’t have to come instantaneoulsy. The lad and I are thick as thieves now!

    Reply
  • Baby love: at first sight or a slow burn? says:
    at 11:02 am

    […] my friend David, a writer and father to twin boys, published this (must-read for expectant dads) essay about feeling a primal protective instinct upon meeting his babies more than affection for them, I […]

    Reply
  • Laura says:
    at 2:57 pm

    It can happen to moms, too. I immediately wanted to protect and provide, but it was a slow and steady building love for me while my husband immediately connected with our daughter.

    Reply
  • Nadia says:
    at 6:35 pm

    I didn’t start feeling the warm fuzzies for my almost 5 month old daughter until I started getting her to sleep on her own a few nights ago.

    Reply
  • Liana says:
    at 10:14 am

    Dr. Laughlin hit the nail on the head! With my first, the love was instant and all encompassing. So when my second arrived, the love for her was different … even lacking. She refused to take a bottle. She wanted only me. It was overwhelming and exhausting. Until a switch flipped in her little head. At 6.5 months she accepted the bottle and learned everyone else wasn’t ‘bad’, and I got a break, did the mushy love show up. I thank God that I’ve got an incredibly understanding and supportive husband, and the best little boy! There were lots if days my son would hug/hold/read to her because Mommy needed to ‘rest’ (aka get away from her for 15 minutes). He had the mushy love for her when I couldn’t find it in me. Thanks for the chance to vent and realize I’m not alone!

    Reply
  • Me says:
    at 3:05 am

    It’s not only dads, it’s the same for moms. The pics, other moms, websites, books… they would all have you believe in this instant love and magical connection you feel with your baby the second he is put on your chest. Well, truth be told, for me it was not like that. What you describe is exactly what I went through with my first-born – total shock and need-to-take-care-of-things mindset. After a few montgs, after settling in my new role and after I started feeling confident as a parent, that’s when the terful love apeared. That’s why I think it is so unfair the image society tries to pain about how a new parent – mother or father – should feel immediately after having a baby.
    Lovely article!

    Reply
  • Phil landsberg says:
    at 9:04 pm

    Beautifully written and dead on.

    Reply
  • Stirling Archer says:
    at 11:25 pm

    Too true. Right away I became the sort of man that had to take charge. I’ll change that hot tar infested nappy. I’ll give bub a warm slosh in the bath. I’ll hand her to mum for some voluptuous babychino boob. It felt right.
    But in all honesty, the first month or so I saw a baby. I knew she was ours but didn’t quite fathom that she was OURS.
    So as time went by, and missy moo started to look into my eyes and comprehend my existence shortly before projectile vomiting in my face, I began to warm to her growing quirks.
    Now I would slay a rabid hippopotamus to protect her and am always seen making strange faces and hooting insane noises at her just to get a wry smile from her. Anything for a reaction and to see her delight.
    As I’ve eased into my role as dad I now I swell with pride and get those tears when I think of her.
    My little pumpkin.

    Reply
  • Kat says:
    at 5:12 am

    Awesome article, and definitely the same for lots of moms…reminds me of these words that I wrote some time after my baby girl was born:

    Encased in flesh and bone, loved fierce with meat and lulled by blood. Hot iron scents the air, screaming, you are here. When you are born, she is too. A primal rage fills her heart, let no-one harm you, or they will find out the true meaning of mother.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *