No man can possibly know what life means, what
world means, what anything means, until he has a child and loves it. Then whole universe changes and nothing will ever again seem exactly as it seemed before. --Lafcadio Hearn On this evening things certainly didn’t seem to be like they were before. This evening had been difficult. As I was trying to get my kids to bed, my daughter was whining and crying about tomorrow’s school clothes while my son flopped around on floor without a care in world.
It was well past their bed time and I was simultaneously: upset with myself for getting behind schedule; preoccupied with a project I was late on; angry with my kids for not cooperating; and worried that they’d have another crabby day from back-to- school stress and a lack of sleep.
I could feel tension envelope my shoulders and jaw. My mind was moving at a dangerous rate.
Then moment happened.
My four year old son looked up at me as innocently as humanly possible and said, Dad, what do snails eat?
Everything slowed down and relaxed. The drama of moment disappeared. My worry and concern had been revealed as a hoax. All that seemed to matter now was getting my kids down to bed in a warm and caring manner.
After stumbling through a snail diet answer and thanking my son for putting things in perspective for me, I marveled at how quickly my emotions could change. Unfortunately, this shift is not always very rapid or easy for fathers in stressful situations.
The challenge for many fathers is how to deal with overwhelm that can be a constant in modern family life. In his book, “Why Marriages Succeed or Fail” (1994), John Gottman found that men produced much higher heart rates and raised their blood pressure higher than women during emotional discussions with their wives. These higher rates also tended to stay higher for longer periods of time.
