What All Dads Need to Recognize About Modern Fatherhood

Ariela Basson/Fatherly; Getty Images, Harper Horizon The following is an excerpt from Fatherhood: A Comprehensive Guide to Birth, Budgeting, Finding Flow, and Becoming a Happy Parent , Fatherly’s first parenting book from Harper Horizon, an imprint of Harper-Collins. Your father knew nothing. Well, next to nothing — at least, next to nothing when it came to the likely effect he would have on you or your life. At most, when you were born , he had an inkling of what his presence and participation could offer. You inherited that same inkling. You’re considering it now, an undistinguished mass like an uncut diamond. Your sense is that you can make something priceless of it, but even the first cut requires a decision you might not be ready for. After all, you don’t know the first thing about diamond cutting. Maybe your father loved you, maybe he didn’t. Whether he was present or absent, understanding or harsh, “good” or “bad” in your estimation, he was most likely unaware of what he held — because there was nobody to teach him to shape it. Like others before him, he progressed through the experience of fatherhood, trying to refine the raw white stone and trying to make it shine. Someone just needed to help him find the correct angles. Since 1950, the U.S. government has spent roughly $600 billion on NASA programs, nearly $10 billion collecting data on mothers, and the $15 million in change it found between the couch cushions went to research related to fatherhood. But the bulk of …