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I, Parent

The Impossibly Unpredictable Trajectory of Being the Grown-Up

By Tim MatthewsPublished 6 years ago 2 min read
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I am a parent.

Before I became a parent, I, like so many others, believed I understood — in some inherent way — what parenthood is. After all, I have parents; I am a son to parents.

And then, when I knew I was to actually, irrevocably become a parent, the awe of such a beautiful procreant happening became tinged with terror.

The terror did not originate from anything like regret or resistance because I was going to have to be “a grown up” and therefore sacrifice my will and wishes for someone else’s to be met and nurtured: it came from somewhere less tangible and far (I now know) deeper…

Life, for me, is a little philosophically absurd. Once belief, subjectivity, socio-psychological constructs, ethics & morals, meaning & purpose, and — the mother of all human experience — the sense of selfhood and identity are looked at or questioned, then the notion of willfully embracing a new life into this human experience becomes a matter of sobering responsibility. And, for me, a responsibility to be taken extremely seriously.

My son will, in a couple of months, be five years old. And something has changed recently in my relationship with him and, crucially, to my perception of parenthood.

He has made me strong in ways I could never have conceived of. He has been a port during disorienting storms. He is a mirror which reflects myself in a light more illuminating than the sun, and far less forgivingly. He has shown me what trust truly means. He has taught me what duty, service, and respect really mean (for I consider my duty to him to be beautiful; I consider my service to him to be an honour; and I respect his raw humanity in a way which helps me to respect the same in others). In short, I could no more have imagined how being a parent to another human being could look than I could have imagined, as a child, who or what I would be at the age of 40. And then some…

Viewed, then, from this utterly new and unfamiliar perspective, I see this: love. Imperfect as I am — as he is and we all are — I see only love, in the end. Because all the rest — all the so-called mistakes, the confusion, the parental anxiety (yeah, ain’t that a thing to behold!), the days when I’m way off my best as a parent, the wishes for more stability/money/energy/patience/certainty — all of it is part of the same ineffable essence: love.

And so, today, I am gratefully humbled by the inimitable authenticity of my son’s humanity. And I find that my terrible responsibility has, literally, saved my life. And I do not consider it a burden at all — unless vouchsafing the wonder that is another human life in development is a burden. And, even then, I’ll shoulder it beyond my capacity to do so, and will weep with exquisite humility as I fail to fulfill this most noble of duties. Thank you, son — my beautiful, beautiful boy; my fellow human being…

To all of you — parents and children alike (and many of us are both): mad respect.

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About the Creator

Tim Matthews

That's not my hat!

This isn't about me...

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