A Different View

I remember when Madonna was an up-an-comer.

I remember when she got really popular.

I remember when she exploded into rock stardom on par with entertainers like Michael Jackson.

But what I most remember is when she had her first child and proclaimed that her life was forever changed because she saw the whole world from a different perspective.

Pathetic. Was my response.

I have long held that making a healthy marriage work over the course of a lifetime has the power to make you a better person. I know the past 15 years have helped me improve so far . . .

I have also held that raising a happy, healthy, well-adjusted child has the ability to make you a better person as well . . .

But I have never been impressed by people who claim to have their whole worldview turned upside-down by the birth of a child.

"You only feel that way because you were such a self-centered insuffrable prig before", has been my typical response.

Well now I am getting a view of life from a different angle . . .

For one, I am noticing that BABIES ARE EVERYWHERE! It's like when you drive off the car lot with that new car of yours and realize that HALF THE PEOPLE ON THE ROAD ARE DRIVING THE EXACT SAME CAR.

They have always been there - you just never identified with them before

The second change I have noticed is a little more consequential.

It goes back to something I heard Dr. James Dobson say over a decade ago. He said that as soon as his first child was born, he began praying for his son's future spouse.

If the wife and I are having a girl, there is a good chance her future husband is alive today - being raised and nurtured by a family doing the best they can with what they have.

If the wife and I are having a boy, there is a good chance that his future in-laws are considering whether or not they are ready to have a baby . . .

And that got me thinking . . . If I am having a daughter, I want to be the standard against which all other men in her life are measured.

The way she sees me treat her mother is the single most important determiner of how she will expect to be treated by future boyfriends and her future husband.

If I am having a son, the way I treat his mother is the model for how he should treat his future girlfriends and his future wife.

I need to be more of a gentleman.

Don't get me wrong, the wife and I have a great relationship based on give and take and mutual respect and all that . . . But I should probably open the car door for her more often. . . .

It's not necessary for me and it's not necessary for the wife but things are a little different when you start living your life as an example for your children.

Maybe that is how we are all supposed to live our lives - as an example for one another. Maybe I have been a "self-centered insuffrable prig".

I don't think I have.

But if my life is going to be lived on stage as an example for my child for the next 50 years or so - I am going to make sure of it.