Day 13 - The Kind of Father I Want to Be

Dear Future Wife,

I would like very much to create a family with you. This family will start with you and me. We will build and create a culture, a way of seeing life, a set of values that we share, and a set of commitments to one another.

Then… if we’re lucky we’ll create or welcome new life together. I’d love to have biological children with you but I’m open to any form of family we decide to create.

In choosing me you won’t just be choosing a husband, you’ll be choosing a father for your children, for our children, and I want you to know the kind of father you’ll be choosing.

The challenge of course is that I have all of these intentions about being a father, but at the same time I don’t really know who I am as a father because I’ve never been him before.

But that doesn’t change the fact that I have an intention for the kind of father I want to be:

• I want to be the kind of father who isn’t in a rush. Who is willing to slow down and sit with our little one or ones and be ok with their tantrum, their sadness, their confusion. The kind of father that isn’t in a rush to make them feel better or get somewhere, or make something happen. The kind of father who slows down and is happy to just be with their child. Without a need to fix or solve anything. Without needing to make something happen a particular way.

• I want to be the kind father who is curious. Rather than trying to shape and mold our children into some image of what I think is best, I want to shepherd them into becoming who they truly are. I want to let go of assuming I know what is right for them, or who they should become, or what path they should want, but instead be open to learning about life from them as they learn about life from me.

• I want to be the kind of father that provides. Support yes, financial, temporal, and physical care, but also that provides emotional safety, wisdom, presence, depth, and deep unconditional love. I want to provide this in moments of abundance and moments of challenge. I want to provide my full self and my full heart.

• I want to be the kind of father that partners in parenting. None of this good parent/bad parent, permissive parent/strict parent BS but two people that partner together to raise our children in a way where each of us offers something unique and special to them. A sharing of care and an honor of difference.

• More than anything I want to be the kind of father that is devotional to parenthood. Not just by playing some kind of gender roles or by providing seed, but by devoting myself to the practice of parenthood.

  I think that so often people feel like they lose themselves to parenthood or that they lose their energy or life when they have children but I want to show up to being a father the way I might show up to the meditation mat, the ecstatic dance circle, the temple, and the wide vistas of nature. I want this practice of creating, nurturing, and caring for children to be a true act of devotion, both to them as tiny beings of light, but also to our love, and to the love of the family we will build together.

There so much more I could say about this. About how I want to teach our children about the things I love, share my favorite cartoons and foods with them, help them learn it’s ok to feel their feelings, support them in their discovery, encourage them to take risks, help them grow and blossom, and seek both to be shaped by them as I work to raise them along side of you.

I see so many images of being a father, holding a tiny hand, teaching them to ski, messy cooking in the kitchen, singing songs together, and so much more.

But my biggest wonder is the mystery of it all. As much as I have ideas of what it will be like to be a father I want to be the kind of father who let’s the blossoming of parenthood guide the way to what is needed in each moment.

I want to share this with you, learn with you, and grow with you as we grow a family we both truly love.

I vow to keep these intentions in my heart and return to them whenever possible, especially in the moments where the baby is crying and the shoes aren’t getting put on and there’s puke on my jacket, and they are crying for a reasons I don’t understand, and when the pull away from us as a way to find themselves, and all the challenging moments ahead of us.

I vow to continue to envision and create a family in my heart and mind so that one day we can bring our visions together and have that be the way to find a path forward to begin building a family that neither one of us can truly understand or even imagine right now.

Until then my love I will be waiting to dream this family into existence alongside you.
Thank you for choosing me and trusting me to be this father for our children. It’s an honor already.

Love,
Toku