How to Know You’re Truly Ready to Be a Father

Photo by Alexandra Morozova

Wristwatches and Radios is a testament to our passion for fatherhood, fidelity, culture and creativity. A common question that we often encounter is how you know that you’re truly ready to be a father? What are the essential elements of your life that you should have established, to know that it’s truly time? What are the fundamental prerequisites to successfully raising a relatively happy, well adjusted, capable, empathetic and thriving child? And why does it matter so much? It matters, because we know, not just from an empirical standpoint, but in our heart of hearts, the impact that our fathers, mothers and families have on the nature of our childhood and the rest of our lives.

Let’s have a look at the most common considerations young men take into account before taking the greatest leap into the most solemn responsibility you’ll ever carry.

The One

First and foremost, a logical point of departure to consider the nature of your current relationship with your other half. Having a child is undoubtedly one of the most challenging, confronting and humbling experiences you’ll ever face - it should be. We’re discussing the creation and cultivation of life itself, forming the heart, soul, talent and temperament of a new little person that will be utterly dependant on you and his mother for stability, certainty and constancy.

Hence, yes, you do want to have cultivated and established a relationship founded on mutual values, understanding, appreciation and  trust. It’s not ideal to bring life into a home riddled with miscommunication, anger and conflict. You’re daughter will benefit nothing from witnessing the telltale bickering of her feuding parents. Your son will sadly misinterpret and misunderstand the basis of a healthy relationship when all he sees is silence and distance, rather than the empathy and embrace of a couple in love. So you need to get it together, and make it forever, if your family is going to thrive in the context of a loving, committed and capable unit that can bring creative ambition, hope and values into the hearts of its children.

But what if your relationship isn’t perfect? What if you do argue, and disagree, and throw tantrums and have to find your way back over the course of hours, or days? What if you don’t see eye to eye on budgets, babies, directions and diets? What if you have completely different interests, passions, habits and heroes? Well, in this case, you’ll have to accept the reality that you’re just like the rest of us. So brace yourself, look past the imperfections and know that if there is love, commitment, fidelity and faith, the myriad mismatches that will set you at odds with one another - they will be utterly meaningless in the grander scheme of things. You will not look back on your deathbed and rue the day you married a woman who didn’t dig Mad Men. The imperfections are unimportant. What matters is your commitment to one another and the children you’ll bring life to - the rest falls away - if you let it.

Furthermore, your children should very well see and understand your marriage as one clear relationship, bound by covenant, to bear a love that is truly unconditional. This should be the relationship marked by affection and acceptance, despite the disagreements and disturbances that will challenge you day in and out. If you can’t be loved unconditionally within your marriage and your family unit, then there’s no place on earth that warrants that kind of selfless, humble, true love. Our children need to learn that this love is very real and utterly vital to our wellbeing and growth. Whatever our failings and flaws, we all deserve to love and be loved. If our parents shouldn't teach us that, who should?

Financial Security

In assessing our preparedness for fatherhood, our next significant point of consideration is often your financial state. Do you have a well paying job? Do you have credit card debt? Have you paid down a deposit on a house? Are you managing your mortgage? Do you have expenses under control? The list of prerequisites is familiar and damning for so many of us. The line of logic argues that it would be downright irresponsible to bring a child into a family that was struggling financially - only adding to the burden and the blight of suffering on all those caught in the trap of impoverished parenthood.

We can understand the associated fears and concerns associated with these sorts of questions. Nor can we judge the well meaning attempt to establish financial security and stability for those you love more than anything in this world. It is important to establish a strong financial basis for continued growth, security and peace of mind (more on this in another post). The thing is, you don’t have to lay all the groundwork before you begin to have children.

Consider the fact that the expenses one largely attributes to raising children don’t really come into play for years. Truly. You need to turn your back on the numbers people throw around about the cost of having and raising each child. The reality is, it’s completely different for every family, every child, and every circumstance. Not only that, but it’s a downright tragedy to consider life, love and family through an economic lens. Let’s be clear: Financial management, wellbeing, planning and strategy are important. But they’re not as important as that kick you’ll feel in your chest the first time to hold your child. They’re not as important as what your kids will teach you about the world and about yourself. They’re not as important as little fingers wrapping around your hand, or the smell of their hair, or the utterly stupefying, idiosyncratic beauty of their smile, their laughter, their toes and their take on it all.

People want to be obsessive and romantic about every damn thing under the sun, but their own children and their own families. We quibble and squabble and argue and laugh and converse about the most menial, banal trivialities, forgetting that each breath that passes through the lips of our children, and our lovers, is a miraculous gift that we never deserved and can never truly appreciate enough. Don’t throw away the best years of your life building the basis to become a father and a family. Build that strength and security, but build it with your children in tow.

Take if from a father of seven - you want to learn how to cut back, live within your means and take stock of what expenses truly matter? Then start a family. Not only do you want to build it together, but a context of financial struggle, or caution, or frugality can be a critical basis to teach your kids about the importance of financial intelligence, prudence and discipline. They will learn little from a life of opulence or decadence. They’ll gain nothing from having access to anything and everything they ask for. They should witness and internalise the importance of conscious spending, saving, investing and frugality. They should understand the value of money and what it can bring you, by their own labour, their own saving, building and then enjoying the fruits of their labour.

And at the end of the day, what’s going to matter more? Knowing you could afford to buy them every game they ever wanted, or having you around for another five to ten years by virtue of their earlier presence in your life?

Career

Tied up with the question of economic success is the inevitable connection with career progression. For many of us, with hard work, focus, commitment, innovation and originality, we may eventually make progress into roles of greater recognition, responsibility and remuneration. Once again, this can be a critical consideration in whether or not a man may feel ready to be a father. There may be a gripping compulsion to hit certain career milestones and milieus before you begin to have children and devote more energy to life at home. Ambition, a strong work ethic and contribution are all noble qualities in their own right, but can create undue damage in the most important aspects of our life, should we act without self-examination and insight.

Stop and consider the nature of career progression and its impact on the time and energy you’ll have to spare as a father. Drive is a wonderful and powerful thing, but will you inadvertently create a tragic distance and disconnect from your presence and role as a husband and father? We need to question the timing of such progression and promotion. If you do intend to start having children in the next five years, is this the time to take on increasing responsibilities, concerns, stressors and hours? There is a time for everything in our lives, and ever demanding roles may well be part of that. Just stop to consider the ages and life stages your children may be facing whilst you put in the overtime and work away weekends to warrant the role you’ve been given.

Maybe it makes more sense to wait. Maybe it doesn’t. But you need to consider the implications, not just in regards to recognition and financial reward, but as a father who is irreplaceable in the life of your children.

Travel

To see the world, its marvels, wonders and cultures, is without doubt a beautiful and life changing act. A passion for so many, travel has become a rite of passage for so many young people, often before beginning tertiary study, or throughout it. Logically, we may wonder whether or not it would be pertinent to fulfil this particular dream and scratch that itch, before laying down roots and beginning your family. The question will remain yours and yours alone to answer. But answer it with the kind of reckless honesty that will bring clarity to all that will come of the question.

Firstly - discern between a curiosity and a calling. If you and your loved one have some vague notion that perhaps you may want to travel before having children together, then identify where exactly it fits on your list of priorities. For many of us, it’s on the list, somewhere, but far below many other dreams and desires. You may find yourself yearning to bring a completely different fantasy to fruition. Some would rather restore a car, or complete a manuscript, or record an album long before they need to feel the hypnotic rumble of takeoff.

Secondly - identify whether or not the dream of travel is a viable financial option. If you want to make it happen, there’s no doubt you can, and will. The romance and reality of travelling on a budget, for those with freedom and youth to burn, is a beautiful prospect for many. And if the itch to see the world burns beneath your skin, keeps you up at night and occupies your every waking thought, do yourself a favour and take the leap. Make it happen. Soak yourself in the sights and sounds of lands unknown and bring that sense of awe and wonderment back with you. It belongs in your life. If you have to wander to find it, then wander away - it can only do you good.

So in this regard? How bad do you want it? And can you make it happen - within the next few years? If you can’t, or it isn’t that big a priority - the world will be there in due time, and you may just get to enjoy it with a different pace and perspective that your life may afford you at this point in time.

A Better Man

Finally, we often hold off in the hope that all things considered, the time will be right when we become a better man. Self knowledge is a powerful, humbling and productive capacity that can drive us to find new ways of living, growing and being. You won’t be the first and you certainly won’t be the last to feel, or better yet, to know, that there are things you need to change about yourself and the way you do things. It could be your patience, your fitness, your habits, your creative output, your organisation, or a thousand other things.

We want to be the best father that we can be, and subsequently, we often believe that holding off on starting a family gives us the time and scope to make it happen. But the bitter truth is, you’re putting the cart before the horse. So many of us need to have our children as an impetus for change. The women that love us and tolerate us (God bless them) make a massive impact on who we are and how we compose ourselves. This is a critical stage of change in our lives. But it’s just the beginning, I assure you.

There is no greater catalyst for self-analysis and slow, meaningful change, than the innocence and idealism of the children you bring into this world. More than ever, you are driven to rearrange and reconstruct an identity that can give them someone to look up to. And sometimes, it takes the beauty and clarity of a child that hasn’t known every path you’ve ever walked, and every mistake you’ve ever made, to allow that change to happen. You don’t become a better man so you’re ready to have children - you’re given the opportunity to become a better man when you have your children - to inspire and sustain that change in a manner that no one else can.

Am I Ready?

So in the end, does it take an impeccable relationship, thriving finances, reaching the pinnacle of your career, world travel and self-actualisation to be ready to be a father? Quite simply, no, it does not. And when you hear someone tell you that the opposite is true, take it with a grain of salt and as one man’s perspective. More than anything, ticking off these criteria may very will limit the time, the life lessons and experiences you may be able to share with your children and family, so think about what really matters, what really counts, and what truly makes a father what he needs to be.

So when do you know you’re ready to be a father? When that child - your child - is a heartbeat, rather than a hope. So embrace the experience with all you have - take from it all you can. Because it's certainly going to embrace and take a great deal from you - and you'll be a better man for it too.