I'm going to be a father soon. This kid was very much planned, and I've been pretty involved every step of the way, yet it still feels bizarre to say that out loud. At 26 (27 when the kid is born), I don't feel like a kid, but in some ways, I'm not sure I feel mature enough for parenthood.

I'm not too worried about the immediate logistical practicalities of parenthood. Things like how to clean, feed, and physically handle a newborn are things I can learn and seem fairly straightforward. Regarding what to get, I live within walking distance of a fairly well known baby supply store, so I figure I can just buy things as the need arises. I'm expecting that first month to be hard, but after I "figure out" the kid, I'm sure it'll be manageable. My folks did it, their folks did it, I'm sure I can do it too.

I guess what I'm really dwelling on is the more abstract aspects of fatherhood. I don't know what to expect and I don't really know what I don't know. What does it feel like? How should I prioritize my life? How do I figure out what's important and what isn't? I want to do what's best for the kid, but what does that even mean? How much is expecting too much from the kid? My wife wants the kid to be able to speak Russian, naturally, I want the kid to be able to speak English, and living in Japan, the kid will also have to pick up Japanese. Is that going to stunt the kid? I have so many questions and no one to really ask. I asked my own dad about it and all he said was something along the lines of "every kid is different, it might take a bit of time to really sink in that you're a dad" and that was that.

A bit of background about my situation:
On one hand, I'm in an okay place. I have a house with a very affordable mortgage, a modest, but stable career, and I live in a very safe part of Japan, which offers a lot of support for new parents. On the other hand, both my wife and I are thousands of miles from our respective families, so we're pretty much on our own and neither of are as fluent in the local language as we'd like to be.

Becoming a father is a moment of great elation and stress, bringing challenges that are hard to anticipate. Given the different demands and circumstances that surround us, many of these challenges are not necessarily shared by our partners. At the very least, many challenges and fortuitous circumstances contain features that are more common for men. What was not like you expected (good or bad)? What did you find particularly surprising or revealing?

It's that magical time of year where I'm being badgered for a Christmas list. I'm 44, have 3 middle teens and a 3 year old (he's late to the party). I have everything I need, but I get asked anyway. I don't want just socks and random tops that I'm not a fan of this year, so I need ideas.

Hobby wise, I'm in IT so tech is already done and not something I can ask for. Asking for a 9" grinder so I can remove some posts next year seems a bit non-chrismassy, or is it because it's something I need and will use?

HELP!

The whole narcissism/NPD thing gets talked about so much these days. I don't know if my father has that. But he no doubt has many of those qualities as he is extremely self absorbed, has been neglectful throughout my life, and is incapable of looking inwards.

There's a lot of back story but hopefully it's enough to say that I have had a strained relationship to my father since I came out as a transgender woman 5 years ago. Everyone else are able to use my new name and gender me correctly, like nobody ever makes a mistake anymore (and mistakes are okay in the beginning because it's new and confusing for everyone). But he continuously says the wrong thing and at times also does it on purpose if he's angry with me for whatever reason.

So the last time I saw him was 3 months ago for a day of golfing with him and my brother, where the first few words he said to me outside of hello was calling me "drengerøv" - literally "boyass". The closest word in English is probably something like boy scout, asshole, or a gendered version of smart-ass. He wanted to get back at me for saying "hi old man" which I feel is a pretty normal thing to say to one's father and also he is 75 years old? But sure, maybe it was cheeky of me. I can see that. So I would have laughed if he called me a bitch or something. But his response was the final drop in the bucket for me because this is after so many conversations about deadnaming and misgendering these last several years. Months do pass without error, but then something like this happens out of the blue time and time again. For those of you who are also transgender, you know how traumatizing it can be. I have nightmares about him.

So anyway the reason for my need to rant here is that three weeks ago, he texted that he wanted to come visit me, but I wrote back that I don't want to see him on account of how it went last time. He didn't reply until now, and I am just kind of in disbelief about how much of a non-apology it is. And it brings me back to the narcissism thing and something called DARVO: deny, attack, reverse victim and offender. He is always the victim no matter what. If he deadnamed or misgendered me in the past, it is always "well I was tired," or "I am very stressed," never an actual apology. And sure enough, this time it isn't either - he actually did use the word apologize a couple of times, but it felt like it was in the context of him feeling bad and being depressed about it rather than truly sorry.

He for example wrote "I spoke to my psychologist and he fully understands that I feel like shit about being rejected by you" and "I am so nervous and afraid of doing the wrong thing again".

Do you notice how it's all about him? Blaming me for rejecting him? How terrible and awful it is for him? In the words of Emily Blunt... You don't get to commit sin, and then ask all of us to feel sorry for you when there are consequences. I just don't fucking care. I'm done feeling sorry for the man who is supposed to be a father figure. Trying to make me feel bad about his fuckups is just... ugh.

And knowing him, he probably wasn't honest with his psychologist about the situation in the first place because he always engineers situations to make himself look good. Even at his brother's funeral, my uncle, his speech was about being the boss of a hundred people in a company back in the day while kind of making fun of how silly it was that my uncle was a communist. My father is just completely incapable of being honest with himself and truly reflect about his behavior. These are all the same reasons my mom divorced him 10+ years ago, feeling very neglected by him. Even this he managed to years later turn on its head and refer to as "the time your mother failed me", like it is just ironic how he always does this and also unbelievable that he cannot himself realize it.

So I think I'm pretty much done at this point. I almost always have to take the high road while he just continues to do his own thing without much of a care in the world until the consequences finally catch up with him. Everything about my relationship with him the last 5 years has been awful. Even if I wasn't queer, he still wouldn't truly care about me - anytime we've had lunch or something, we only ever talk about him. He would only ask how I was doing to be polite. It got to the point that if we talked on the phone, I would time how long it took for him to start talking about himself and it was rarely more than half a minute. One time, I didn't even manage to answer, like he didn't even pause after asking the question before going on to talk about his own shit.

Another great example of this idiocy is when I woke up from anesthesia earlier this year after having triple jaw surgery. One of the first things he tried to talk about was how lucky he was that he found a good parking spot while I was literally in the middle of throwing up blood. I had tears in my eyes and my stomach was convulsing and I looked probably the worst he's ever seen me, and yet all he does is wrinkle his nose in disgust, turn to my mom (who, being sane, of course completely ignored him) and smiling while bragging about something as mundane as parking. Who does that? What the fuck!?

I have been typing for more than an hour at this point so it's probably unhealthy to continue lol, sorry, and thank you for reading my rambling if you actually made it this far.

Title says it all. I'm only in my late 20s and I've been his primary care taker for most of my adult life. There isn't any other person I've spent more time with in my entire life. I'm trying to prepare myself for when the moment he's gone and I know it's going crush me all the same.

This will be my greatest loss in life so far. I know everyone goes through something like this. What did you do when a moment like this came? What did you do when it felt like you couldn't get up? I have know idea how I'm going to get through this, I just have to believe I will.

EDIT: Thank you for all your kind words and we'll wishes. My dad passed away September 23, 3:30 PM local time with his boys by his side. I'll love him and miss him every single day.

OK, so I have a very nerdy, mildly ADHD 9 year old boy who has been fascinated with WW2 for ages. All this started with him getting obsessed with the Titanic when he was about 4, which then led us to look at some old Nat Geo magazines about Robert Ballard's oceanographic expeditions which then led him to get fascinated with the German battleship Bismarck and Operation Rheinubung. The drama of big gun battleships got him in the feels and in the five years since then he has been deeply into naval stuff, particularly WW2 naval combat ever since. Musically this got him into Sabaton and their WW1/2 related metal songs. He actually sat down and watched the 1960s black and white Sink the Bismarck on YouTube, along with stuff like Midway (the version from a few years back). He thinks aircraft carriers are cool and ate up both Top Gun movies and is now getting into submarines (loved The Hunt for Red October) but wistfully repeatedly tries to reason me into agreeing that navies should have stuck with big gun battleships.

However, this has manifested as a deep fascination with Germany in general- he knows the basics about fascism, the Holocaust and Wehrmacht atrocities (but still can't quite get why it happened) but to a small boy I understand the OMG WUNDERWAFFEN attraction. Coincidentally his best friend is an ethnically German girl which further gets him a bit confused because he can't quite grok the difference between "my friend is German, I think German engineering is cool" and "but we still condemn fascism".
To be clear- he understands why racism and prejudice are wrong. As an ethnic minority in our country I suspect he'll come into contact with racial prejudice sooner rather than later so hopefully life experience will lead him away from the alt-right bits of history nerdery.

We're in Singapore, which means there's very little consciousness of the Holocaust in public education- our history syllabus (fairly enough) deals with the Pacific War and its effects on postwar decolonisation when it touches on WW2 whereas the European theatre is just vague background.

I don't know where I'm going with this, really- I like that my son is a history buff, and I don't want to cut him off from intellectual interests he's passionate about but on the other hand I'm wondering how I can let him enjoy this while contextualising it from a progressive perspective.

Hello,

I’m soon to become a father to my firstborn child and have the opportunity to take some paternity leave through work. While the length of time I can take is very generous (as far as I know), I’m truly unsure how much is usually the norm for fathers.

I work in a stable office job, while my wife is self employed and will be taking 3 months off. I am leaning towards taking the week after birth off and intermittently working from home afterwards as needed, as even with leave I would most likely not receive my full 100% pay, which we will definitely need. In addition to the financial impact, my daily work usually consists of stuff that my coworkers would be unable or struggle with staying on top of, and I do not want to put any extra burden on them, or have tasks not completed merely to back up until my return.

Any advice or comments would be much appreciated as I am struggling to figure this out!

Extending a warm Happy Father's Day to all fathers, grandfathers, adoptive fathers, step fathers, god fathers, spiritual fathers, father in law's, soon to be fathers, those who would have been fathers, our departed fathers, and others that I have missed.

May your day be beautiful and wonderful.

Celebrate!

Edit: Okay it's Monday now : ) How'd it go? For fathers with very young children did you guys get home made cards from the mom plus stickers contributed by your child(ren)? Where are you going to store these cards, or do they go straight in the recycling, you monster?

Happy Father's Day!

I thought I will chat a bit about my very favourite cartoon father figure - Iroh from The Last Airbender.

What I find really interesting about this character, and honestly fans can probably write novels about him, is that while he plays a major father figure to the cast, his own son is never really seen on screen and not given much development.

Still, he openly and freely offers his wisdom and help to anyone, whether they are seeking or accepting of it or not. This is not to say that he forces his views on anyone, but is usually the opposite, allowing the kids to weigh and process issues on their own with his guidance, which ends up visibly frustrating for him when it comes to Zuko.

There are lots of examples of him being a good "father”, but most notable for me is his quick forgivess of Zuko.

For all who have seen the series, what do you think? And for those who haven't, you really need to.

I thought, since it's Father's Day weekend, I will talk about a father in a favourite comicbook run of mine - Bruce Wayne from New 52 Batman and Robin by Tomasi.

For a lot of Batman fans, me included, Bruce is the mask. The New 52 Batman and Robin run is the first time Bruce was a person for me. We see him back from the dead and now teamed up with his young son, Damien. At the beginning of the series, Damien is transitioning from being Grayson's Robin to Wayne's. A transition that is not dissimilar to working for your fun big brother to suddenly working for your demanding dad.

Bruce and Damien is a really interesting pair because previously you always get a serious partner and a fun one. In the original, Bruce is serious and Grayson as Robin is fun. Later, Grayson becomes the fun Batman, and Damien becomes the serious Boy Wonder. So pairing Bruce and Damien, you end up with serious and serious. However this is not the case, and readers end up seeing two people with similar personalities both loosening up.

Bruce has to become more than Batman to be a father and in doing so, Bruce stops being a mask and starts being a real person.

I am trying to leave out spoilers, for both the plot and the characterization, which honestly made this really hard to write. For those who haven't read it, I recommend it. For those who have, what do you think?