No one forgets the birth of their first child. For me the blessed event occurred on November 21, 1969. I had done my best to train my wife through the Lamaze breathing techniques we had learned in our childbirth classes. It was now time for her to move into the delivery room to complete the delivery process and welcome our newborn into the world.
We were both ready for the last leg of the journey. The nurse turned to me smiling and said;
“Okay Mr. Diamond, your work is done now. You can go to the waiting room and we will let you know when your child arrives.”
I felt a mixture of relief and disappointment. On the one hand we made it this far together and I wanted to be with my wife for the birth. On the other hand, I was afraid I might freak out and pass out. I didn’t want to spoil things.
I kissed my wife and told her she was going to be fine. He tried to smile but it was overcome by the next contraction. As she was led to the left towards the delivery room, I went the other way. But as I started to walk through the doors to the waiting room, something stopped me. I felt the call of my future child saying:
“I don’t want a waiting room father. Your place is here with us.”
I turned and went around the other side and pushed open the doors to the delivery room. I did not ask for permission and there was no question of my leaving if asked. I didn’t care what the rules were, my child needed me and I answered the call. It wasn’t long before our beautiful baby boy was born. As Cemal was handed to me, in tears of relief and joy, I made a vow that I would be a different father than my father could be to me, and that I would do everything I could to create a world where fathers were fully engaged with their children throughout their lives.
After we brought him home from the hospital, I took three weeks off work to spend time being a supportive parent to my wife and continue to bond with our son. The event of Jemal’s birth and the aftermath changed my life forever. A year after Jemal was born, my wife announced that she needed a break from 24-hour parenting. He recognized that I helped a lot, but he needed a break from being the primary caregiver. A friend had invited her to go on a road trip, maybe for a few weeks, and she asked me if I could take a few weeks off work again and be with Jemal.
I quickly agreed, wanting to be a good, new-age, liberated father. But inside I was terrified. It was one thing to be the supportive parent knowing that I had the mother of our child to step in at all times. I believed that mothers had an innate understanding of babies and knew what to do, which I felt men lacked. I felt like I had learned a lot about caring for our baby, but what did I really know. I was just a man. What would I do if he needed something I couldn’t give him? We didn’t have any mothers in the area who could help us, but my wife assured me that I could call her anytime if I needed advice.
The first few days were scary, but Jemal and I figured things out together. I found I had abilities I didn’t know I had. We played together, father and son. I fed him, changed his diapers, slept with one ear open listening to every cry in the night. My wife called me a few times and I honestly told her that things were going well. We both missed him, but father and son survived and prospered.
We did more than survive and thrive. We created a bond together that lasted over time. We are connected in a way that most fathers and sons are not. I feel confident as a father and as a person that I never imagined I would feel.
Jemal will be fifty-six in November. My wife and I now have six grown children, seventeen grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. I keep loving and learning. I recently heard about a new book, Father Time: A Natural History of Men and Babies by world-renowned evolutionary anthropologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy. It helped me understand my own experiences as a father and the importance of fathers throughout evolutionary history.
Recently I had the good fortune interview with Dr. Hrdy, which you can watch here. After a full career studying the lives of mothers and writing iconic books The woman who never evolved, mother nature, began to recognize the importance of paternity that had been largely neglected by experts in Darwinian science and evolutionary psychology.
“It has long been taken for granted that women take care of babies and men take care of other things,” says Dr. Hardy. “Hasn’t it always been this way? When evolutionary science came along, it sealed this venerable division of labor: male mammals evolved to compete for status and mates, while females were specifically made to conceive, nurse, and raise the winners’ offspring.”
However, the experiences that Dr. Hrdy’s observations of men raising babies in her family led her to explore the evolutionary roots of male parenting of young babies and helped us recognize a much more expanded reality of what it means to be a man. What he discovered would change our views of masculinity forever.
I learned this more than fifty years ago when Cemal was born. More and more men have experienced this augmented reality.
“Men who care for babies undergo the same neurological transformations, the same increase in prolactin levels and oxytocin-induced sensual pleasure as mothers.”
says Dr. Hrdy. I did not understand the biological changes I went through at the time, but this was certainly my experience as I spent significant time in physical contact with Jemal.
“If their brains undergo shape changes similar to mothers’, wouldn’t men’s psychological preferences also change?” asks Dr. Hrdy. “Are men’s priorities more similar to what mothers are supposed to have? Are these men also more likely to choose safer and more sustainable courses of action?”
I would take it one step further. Would men with these kinds of altered brains, brains that are not only attuned to children, but also to humans and other living things, be the kind of men who could join with women to create a healthier, more sustainable world? It doesn’t take experts to warn us of the reality that humanity is out of balance with the laws of nature and that we must change our ways if we are to survive and thrive as a species.
Thomas Berry was a priest, “geologist” and historian of religions. He spoke eloquently about our connection to the Earth and the consequences of our failure to remember that we are a member in the community of life.
“We never knew enough. Nor were we intimate enough with all our cousins in the great earth family. Nor could we hear the various creatures of the earth, each telling its own story. The time has come, however, for us to listen or die.”
At a time when mothers feel overwhelmed trying to care for infants and many seek childcare from strangers or even AI robots to raise our childrenthe answer may be to support more hands-on and heart-connected fathers and their babies. What do you think?
You can learn more about Dr. Hrdy and her work from by visiting her website. You can watch in depth interview with her here.
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