Agree with the sibling comment. As a new father, nothing - and I mean absolutely nothing - can describe the love, adoration and reverence that parents feel for their children. To be understood, it must be experienced. There is simply no other way.
Thanks for the answer. And I understand that. But for me, that answer is potentially a very biased answer. Is it a feeling that comes naturally or is it forced in the sense that you realise you are everything for the kid and the kid is everything for you and both you the kid have no other choice.
Talking to a lot of people (bit you) i felt it was more the latter.
Babies have no guile or instinct to deceive; they literally can't even conceive of doing so because their worldview just isn't developed enough. So when your baby cries, you can have absolute faith that it's because there's some problem that needs solving or need that is unmet, and then you can go and solve the problem, fill the need, and the baby is happy. And when the baby's happy, you have absolute faith that it's because you were there doing the thing. There's no pretense to the relationship at all, and it's a sort of unusual honesty that can be really hard to find in relationships where both parties understand basic facts like "there is a world of people outside myself" and "people don't have special insight into my interior being and I can give them information that doesn't fully reflect the state of the world".
So that kind of honest exchange does a lot to foster love and adoration from you to the child, and the fact that you're there providing food, shelter, comfort et all to the baby fosters love and adoration from them to you.
My kid is just under 18 months old now. He's old enough to have distinct ideas about what he wants to do, and when he wants to do it, and he's old enough to understand that not getting to do the thing that he wants is really upsetting, so he cries. That's hard sometimes. But if I'm relaxing on the couch and he brings a book over to me, I can know with absolute faith that it's because right now, what he wants more than anything in the world is to sit in my lap and have me read a book to him, and that feels amazing. When he goes and hides behind the kitchen island and then jumps out, it's because the thing he wants to do more than anything else is play peekaboo with me, and that feels amazing too.
Let me paraphrase a scene from “Lessons in Chemistry”.
The main character confesses that twice she has wanted to give up her child for adoption. Another mom laughs... "Twenty times would still make you an amateur."
It didn't come naturally for me. Babies aren't much fun. There were plenty of times I wondered why everybody else finds being a parent fulfilling and here I am trying not to swear at a crying six month old at 1 am.
Toddlers though... toddlers are fun. Not always, but a lot of the time. Once both of my kids cleared the baby stage I finally would describe myself as a proud parent, mostly happy.
Now we are empty nesters and both of my kids live far away and are doing great. With the space that leaves I've spent some time thinking about myself as a dad and boy do I have a lot of regrets. I don't think I was very good at it.
I understand now why so many people who weren't the greatest parents get very excited about grandchildren. I know if that happens for me, I'm going to be a much better grandparent than I ever was parent.
+1. I also felt this huge gap between knowing (intellectually) what parenting is and actually experiencing it. It really changes you, to the point that now, when I talk to childless people my age, I feel like we're fundamentally differently. I think I can perceive fairly accurately whether someone my age is a parent after just a few minutes of general conversation (obviously, without having to visit adjacent topics).
I experienced this so strongly I spent some time actually writing a poem (in Spanish) about it: https://alejo.ch/39l
> It really changes you, to the point that now, when I talk to childless people my age, I feel like we're fundamentally differently.
As a childless person, the inverse is equally true. I have wildly different levels of obligation and constraint - and that difference typically becomes obvious very very quickly. I don't say that as a better/worse, just different.
