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| Parenting Advice For New Parents |
Emotionally, at least, baby has replaced nothing. Baby has added something, and will go on adding more. Your life will be richer for knowing baby, and you realize that life without baby would now be poorer than anything you would be willing to tolerate. The vista opens out, and those clouds are not as drab or grey as you first thought. Without realizing it, let alone understanding it, you have made the transition. Now you really are a father. Congratulations. Welcome to the club.
FERGUS: Took me six months to fall in love with them. Each time, I think it's to do with the end of breastfeeding. Because you then start having more of a role. And I've actually been very involved as a father, much more than most. Because I take them to school and I put them to bed. I like feeling involved. And it was the feeling that I was part of it that I think made me feel happy with it.
When the second one stopped breastfeeding, we were on holiday in Greece. It was the first time I'd had sole control of her. And I took her in a backpack up this mountain. And we got lost. I ended up climbing up this sheer slope, this scree, feeling this total of panic - you know, the first day I look after her, I manage to kill her. And the fear for her suddenly kick-started this incredible feeling of love for her. And also this desire on my part to make sure she didn't die, didn't get eaten by wolves or something like that. And suddenly I realized I had a role, even though it was my fault that we were in such a ridiculous position. It was my fault and it was my job to get her out of there.
IVAN: I think when the child is born you feel protective and loving, but there was a moment when I realized that I loved W, that he was just this precious, precious thing to me. He was born in July and my mum died suddenly in November. We had her funeral the week after W's christening. We'd gone around to her house to sort out some effects and I think this was about a month after she died, and people had been saying, he doesn't seem to be affected by his mother's death. I think people were expecting me to crack up, and I didn't.
And there was one particular occasion when I was with W at her house, and he was by a sofa or something, and he fell over, and cIonked his head, and he was only about four or five months old, and you think, oh Christ, he's hit his head, and you whip him up to the hospital, and of course he was absolutely fine. But I was so distraught at the thought that my carelessness might have hurt him. In the car park at the hospital I just completely went to pieces, and all this crap about my mother suddenly came out. I'd never cried like that before, or since, it was horrible. And it was at that point that you suddenly realize that this small bundle is so astonishingly precious, and you love it to bits. To find out more, you can check out Parenting Advice For New Parents.