The Hardest Part About Being A Father

As any new parent will tell you, once a child arrives, your relationship with time gets completely distorted. Days of the week are a thing of the past. You can’t find a free minute to pee in peace. You’re hallucinating from a lack of sleep. Or you’re deep in the reality of “long days, short years.”

All fair and true. 

But I’m wrestling with a different chronological beast; how to deal with my place on the conveyor belt of life in relation to my son.

Let’s use an analogy.

When we’re born, we begin a one-way ride—of unknown, but determinate length—on our individual conveyor belt through life. Every person we interact with is on their own conveyor belt, all of us heading in the same exact direction at the same exact pace. This overlapping is what gives our life context with the conveyors around us: friends, family, society, etc. 

But while we all might share the same moment in time today, being parallel to someone else’s conveyor does not mean you have the same amount of track left. 

News Flash: People die. You will die. Others will outlive you.

Here's a visual representation of the conveyor belts (lifespans) of my grandparents, parents, siblings and son (assuming those alive live until 92).

As a parent, I’m keenly aware that I am not on the same road trip as my son. My exit will (hopefully) come before his, but there’s also this sensation that the older he gets the closer we are becoming.

My son is 2. Cognitively we’re closer than when he was born. We can now play, communicate, and share memories, but just like in the conservation of energy equation where energy cannot be created or destroyed, it doesn’t matter how emotionally close I get to my son, I will always be 43.25 years older than him. 

The conveyor belt of time will never compress. 

Selfishly, I want to see his entire life, but I know I can’t. Hell, with the 43 year gap, I might not get to see him find his way, find a partner, be a dad, or build a life. Even if I live to a full age I might not even get to see half of his.

But this parent-dies-first thing is how life…is life. I know.

Maybe it’s me wrestling with the weight of responsibility; especially when, as the youngest of three, my conveyor went further into the future than everyone else’s. I never had to be anyone’s elder statesman. Now there is a person I love deeply, who relies on me to a staggering degree, who will see my conveyor end.

This would hit less if I knew Zayn was going to have siblings to share life’s ups and downs with. But he doesn’t. He won’t. (We tried).

I have siblings. My parents had siblings. All my cousins have siblings. I come from a family of close knit tribes (in the familial sense).

The hardest part about being a father to an only child is knowing that my wife and I will die one day, and that my son won’t have any siblings to help bear the brunt of that pain.

Have I let him down in some way?

Because of this, I find myself wanting to be his father and his brother. Hence, me, wanting to squish the conveyor belt of time.

Yes, I know. That’s absurd. As I said in an earlier post, parenthood, at its core:

is about being a safety net for your kid until they can be their own—or build their own. I want my son to leave the nest and thrive in the world as he sees fit, ASAP.

I know my job is to prepare him—as soon as possible—to not need me, but man, that’s a tough assignment to ponder especially because right now his world is all giggles and innocence. He knows nothing about the freight train of indifference coming his way. And he doesn’t have the tools or the community to deal with it yet.

I look at his smile when he is absorbed in full play, and as present as I want to be, I can’t help but wonder who he will be? What will his resilience be like? What world will he inherit? Who will he lean on? Who will let him down? Who will steer him when his mother and I can’t? 

Maybe that’s the illusion all parents feel, that we’re in control somehow. 

I guess that’s the beauty of existence; his life is not my life. It isn’t for me to control.

And so I have to continue helping him build the blocks—and showing healthy examples—of independence, resilience, love, and community, all while never wanting to let him go. 

A herculean task, but also a privilege while our conveyor belts are moving together, side by side, at this moment in time.