My friend and colleague Margaret Wheatley says,
“Warriors appear in some historical moments, when something valuable is threatened and needed protection. It could be tribes, communities, kings, territories – something prevalent by external forces.
In my book, The journey of warrior home: healing men, healing the planet, I said we need to separate the life of the warrior from the destruction of the war and the reported meditation Master Chögyam Trungpa.
“Warriorship here is not referring to war to others,” says Trungpa. “Aggression is the source of our problems not the solution. Here the word ‘warrior’ is taken by Tibet struggle which literally means “someone who is brave”. The war position in this context is the tradition of human bravery or the tradition of fearless. “Trungpa concludes, saying,” The warrior is not afraid who you are. “
I lived my first warrior calling on November 21, 1969. My wife was pregnant with our first child and I had spent the last nine hours to train her through the Lamaze breathing techniques we had taught us in the ranks of the children with other expected parents. When we started the lessons, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to be part of the birth process, even if I am allowed, fearing that I could go out of blood or deal with my husband’s pain over the pain and be more obstacle than a help.
When the time came to go to the delivery room, the nurse said,
“Well, your job is done here Mr. Diamond. You can go to the waiting room now.”
I felt a mixture of sadness and relief. We had given the rules of Kaiser Hospital from the beginning. Whatever the doctor was when the baby was ready to be born, he would decide whether the father would be allowed in the delivery room. So I kissed my wife goodbye and wish her well. It was a wheelchair through the doors to the delivery room and I walked under the long corridor to the exit signal leading to the waiting room to sit with the other expected fathers.
However, in the eternity of these few moments it took to take the short walk, something shifted within me. I felt a call from my unborn child who could not refuse me to tell me I do not want a father waiting. Your place is here with us.
I turned around and returned to the delivery room and took my place on the head of the table. There was no question of asking for permission, no chance of leaving if it headed. I was just there. I felt a wonderful sense of calm come to me and very soon, in the tears of joy, my son, Jemal, reached the world. He gave me and as I looked at his eyes, I was oath that I would be a different father than my father was able to be for me and do everything I could to create a world where the fathers were fully engaged with their children throughout their lives.
When my wife and I were in college after we met and fell in love, we agreed that we both wanted children. But we also felt that there were children who had already been born who needed favorite parents. We decided that we would have a child then we adopt a child. After Jemal was born, we started the adoption process for a little girl. Two years later we adopted an age of two and a half months, African-American little girl we called Angela.
As I write this son Jemal, he is 54 years old and has his own child. Angela is 52 and has four children. My wife, Carlin, and now we have six children, seventeen grandchildren, three big grandchildren and one on the street. Before I had children, I thought that my purpose as a human being was focused outside the house, with the work I did in the world. I still work outside the house, but over the years I have come to see my most important role as a practical caregiver.
Father Time: A Natural History of Men and Babies
Dr. Sarah Hrdy is anthropologist and primary and one of the world’s leading experts on the evolutionary basis of female behavior in both non -human and human primates. Recently turned her attention to men.
“It has long been obvious that women take care of babies and men to do other things,” says Hrdy. “When evolutionary science came, he put rubber in this respectable part of the work: male mammals evolved to compete for the situation and partners, while females were designed to build, breastfeed and cultivate the offspring of the winners otherwise.”
In her recent book, Father Time: A Natural History of Men and Babies, Hrdy began to identify the deep history of male cultivation and explain a stunning divergence from everything he had assumed that he was “normal”. It offers a sweeping description of male cultivation, explaining how and why men are organically converted when they are interested in babies.
“Under the right conditions,” he says, “the males of our species are equally equipped with women to cultivate babies and develop care priorities.
This was definitely my experience when Jemal and Angela were babies. As soon as I brought my wife and newborn son home from the hospital, I took three weeks away from work to help with immediate care. I guess mothers were born with some genetically driven knowledge of how to take care of babies, but soon learned that it wasn’t happening. She had breasts for the baby, but breastfeeding was an art that she and the baby had to learn together.
I knew that the changing diapers were not special for gender skills and soon I learned to get to it as well as my wife. After three weeks I returned to work and my wife soon moved to the role of full -time caregiver, with me as a support team. This lasted a year until my wife announced one day that she needed a break and made a three -week trip with a girlfriend and that I would assume full -time duties while she was away.
The idea sounded logic. I could say that he was exhausted even with the help I gave when I came home from work. But the truth was that I was scared as hell. All my fears came to the surface. What will I do when I don’t know what to do? What if he starts crying and I can’t make him stop? We had no other family living with us and most of our friends were either single or were shocked by their own family challenges.
My wife was reassuring and said I could call her if I needed tips. He kissed me goodbye and he went away. I am very far from these frightened days, but the truth was that it was one of the greatest gifts of my life. Jemal and I worked things together. Every hour of each day we were together, I won trust. My wife had left enough breast milk (using one of these handpumps popular at that time) and I learned how to warm and serve. We played together and brought him on my back.
My wife was worried when I hadn’t called and when she called me, she was relieved to find out that we went well. My confidence as a human being has grown over the years, as I have learned new skills in our daughter’s care.
Dr. Hrdy has discovered some of the reasons that men can become both good in infants and women.
“At the beginning of my career, in the 1970s, while still focusing on childhood, the contrast of cultivation,” says Hrdy, “I learned about a phenomenon called” sensitization “. Even in the species of animals whose male people usually ignore, gently. Time in intimate proximity Somehow “turned a switch” to the deeper recesses of the male brain, either a rodent or a monkey. “
Dr. Hrdy continued to say,
“Time in close proximity to babies could have amazing effects on males, including overflow in oxytocin (known as a” welding “hormone).”
I didn’t know it at that time, but I come into contact with my children caused the brain chemicals that exist in both males and females and can be stimulated if enough time is given together. Dr. Hrdy ends up,
“For men, it turns out. They have a different birthday right than I and many of my evolutionary colleagues have assigned them so much.”
In a system that will deny the fathers in the delivery room, I learned that it is getting power with the heart, as my colleague Dr. Daniel Ellenberg describes it or is a compassionate warrior as another friend, Sean Harvey discusses in his book, Warrior compassion: liberation of men’s therapeutic power. It’s time for more men to get up and embrace our right. We need more than ever now.
I look forward to hearing from you. What are the experiences that cultivate young children? What support have you received? What resistance have you found from others or your own early preparation for what is “natural” for men?
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