Over Crediting

 My last post was an attempt to better illustrate my relationship with Adri, but I always worry that when I do so it can come across as “Look!... Look!.... what a great father I was, look at all I did!!” and that’s never my intention. Being a parent to your child should never need accolades for, you know, being a parent to your child. This was always a sore spot with me in the past.

I’d be out in public with Adri and constantly get praise and pats on the back for doing nothing other than spending time with her and taking care of her. I assume it was because I was a (relatively) young male with a child in tow, and as such would get credit for any little thing. The bar was pretty low, evidently, for guys taking care of children. 

“Ohhh…. It’s just so great that you’re taking your daughter to the museum!,”
or 

“Awww…. Look at that!! That dad is brushing his daughter’s hair!!!,”
or

“Wow! I think it’s wonderful that you hold her purse while she plays in the park!!,“
or

“Isn’t that Just. So. Cute!!! I love how you two are out seeing a movie together!,”
or

“I think you’re an AMAZING dad playing Barbies with her!”

Etc.

I’d want to ask them, “would you fawn over me doing these things if I were a woman?,” but I didn’t because I’m not confrontational. (Openly. 😉 )

I know they meant well. I know this was probably 95% just yet another example of one of my weird personality traits where I overthink things. Still, it made me feel guilty, a sort of imposter syndrome or what have you. It also made me a bit sad for a society that thought it was a big deal that a dad would do such things with his daughter. 

Sometimes I became overly sensitive to this, worried that people thought I was “showing off” or whatever by simply being human, and part of me worries that I might have come across that way in my previous post. 

The real point of my last post was just to try to illustrate a bit how much my identity was wrapped up in me being a father to Adrianna. We all have several roles during the course of our or lives, and that one was always the most important one to me, and it was all-encompassing.