If I have not said enough already, last year I became a father.
It took a while to really get back to focusing on my goals. Time is tight and there is the obvious distraction (i.e. a baby) but so far its all good, I feel motivated than ever and finding ways to make it work.
When I was reviewing my progress my wife asked the usual “What are you writing about?” type question, so I gave the standard answer about recording recent progress against my goals.
“Okay… do you have any family goals?”
I sat in silence for a moment… then I simply said “No”
It wasn’t really a difficult question I just hadn’t put in any thought into being a better father. When I really thought about it there was so many things I could do.
When setting ‘fatherhood goals’ I thought it from my perspective as I couldn’t expect to set goals for others to do and I certainly wasn’t about to become a pushy parent for an eight month old.
It had to be me – how could I be a better father for my daughter and a better husband for my wife. This is what I have called the second stage of my ‘step theory’ to improve my families standing.
After much thinking I set myself the following as a starter:
- Ensure I read to her everyday.
- Make time to feed her on work days.
- Always put her to bed.
I also have some other goals which relate with my wife – becoming a mother has made me see her in a new way, as she has with me being a father – its been very easy to forget how we were before the baby and I don’t want to neglect that.
What are you thoughts on my goals? Do you have any family goals? Please feel free to share in the comments.
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Perfect Manifesto 
James,
I think your goals are laudable. When my son was born, I made it a point to do the bedtime routine, since I saw him less often than my wife. Six years later, and I’m still doing bedtime. It’s nice.
I think it’s fantastic that you’re setting goals like this. It’ll pay off big time as your daughter gets older.
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Thanks. It seems so small, but its important to get to spend the time when I’m at work – I’m glad to see in the long term that it pays off.
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Little things add up, my man.
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I think it is great that you set goals! As a parent, I know it can be very easy to beat ourselves up over the things we don’t do. Parental guilt is probably one of the worse feelings there is. Setting goals can help us feel like we are doing something about it.
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Thanks, it gets pretty hard when I have been working and lack the time (and sometimes the patience) to handle day to day childcare issues. I am getting better at forgiving myself and just keep making the point of carrying out regular habits.
Thank you for your comment.
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Hey James! Great to hear this! 🙂
Love how you set yourself the goal of reading to your daughter every night!
From reading, infants learn to process the phonetics of their mother tongue language and also begin to associate meaning with words.
Pretty much all research in developmental psychology shows us that the more language an infant processes during infancy and childhood, this will have numerous positive effect on many brain parts.
1. Their limbic brains develop more. This is the part where emotions and feelings are processed/originate. In response to this, you’re increasing the likelihood of your daughter of developing social skills such as empathy much quicker and stronger.
2. You are also promoting that her limbic system will be able to process a much wider array of emotions and feelings which in turn leads to a greater ability to express herself later on in life. She will be better at things like ’emotional talk’ and understanding the mental states of other people, all due to the vocabulary she acquires from listening to read out content.
Just thought I’d share this with you! 🙂 I can’t wait to become a father one day 😀
Great stuff! Keep it up with your writing! 🙂
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Thank you! Have to admit with time and tiredness from working its not necessary something I think to do, but since making a point of making it a daily habit, I get that reading in.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge, its good to know why reading to your children is important rather than just ‘because’. I am going to make sure to drop these positives to reading when I am next in conversation with my wife – sure she will wonder where I picked it up from!
Thanks for sharing and the kind comments, its been the greatest pleasure in my life to become a father and will enjoy sharing my experiences now and in the future 🙂
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Hey James, that sounds amazing! I’m so happy for you as well! 🙂 I’m sure you’ll be a great dad! Blessing to you and your wife! 🙂
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Thank you 😁
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