Last Updated on February 15, 2021 by admin
DEBUTANT
‘Uneasy lies the head that bears the crown’ goes that saying. So I am sure you can’t boast just as I cannot, that you have things under control all the time; because as the man in charge, you are always on the ‘hot seat’; but thanks be to the Book of books from where we derive the enablement to do all things through Christ who strengthens us! Let this serve as an intro!
You will agree with me that your role as a man transcends just being a husband the moment you get married. You have, apart from your wife, family members to deal with, your in-laws and peers; and especially when the’ mercy drops’ begin to fall, you become inevitably mature rapidly. As a first timer a few years ago(now ‘am gradually becoming a veteran), the only ‘holy fear’ I had then was not my role as a husband but what I’d be like by the time my children started arriving, especially as I was privileged to be among the first set that got married among my peers. During my wife’s pregnancy alone, it got to an embarrassing level when I fail to respond not deliberately, to calls from neighbours such as ‘Baba Tinuke’, ‘Baba Twins’ etc which are common teases for those expecting a baby.
The reality however eventually dawned on me when my wife finally put to bed. ‘It’s a boy!’…the nurses shouted, heaving a sigh of relief, after a prolonged labour-a story for another day! And with this joyous ‘tod’, oh my God, comes a lot of responsibilities! Of course you know who a ‘Debutant’ is……naïve, inexperienced, uncoordinated, ‘stage frightened’ and so are almost bound to run into a brick wall. These are moments when the courageous words are replaced with ‘It is well o!’
The main hurdle and most significant challenge as a Debutant was the adjustment in my circadian rhythm by ‘fire by force!’ I had to invent various ways of making my boy sleep. We’d all be up sometime till 3, 4am and I had to resume to work by 8a.m. I had been marked at work then as usually dosing off during academic seminars and ward rounds; but I always made it a point of duty not to sleep when consulting…that would mean the proverbial ‘sleeping while riding a bicycle’. I realized that most of us are usually not prepared for these early challenges especially for those that got prepared through only parenting magazines, journals, books etc. You also need to interact with experienced and married gurus, which was one of the reasons fatherhood wasn’t much of a nightmare to me then; though I paid my own price as a debutant too.
So ‘fatherhood’ isn’t a joke but the only way out is to always acknowledge God as the true Head of our homes and of course, cast all our cares upon Him!
bayo edunjobi ©