The Men We Marry Become Fathers, Too

Recently, I pulled out an old journal of my husband Edoardo’s and found myself rereading pages from the early years of our children’s lives. The paper was slightly worn, the handwriting unmistakably his. And suddenly, there he was again: the man I married, becoming a father in real time.

There we were, too—two new parents with absolutely no idea who our children would become or what parenthood would ask of us.

I sat there with a cup of coffee growing cold beside me and felt something I wasn’t expecting.

Tenderness.

What I thought would be a nostalgic trip down memory lane became something much more meaningful: a reminder that while we often talk about how women become mothers, we rarely talk about how men become fathers. We don’t often talk about the quiet transformation of fatherhood, or how becoming a dad changes a man, a marriage, and a family.

This Father’s Day, I find myself thinking about the privilege of witnessing that transformation firsthand—of watching the man I married become the father my children would grow up loving.

The men we marry become fathers, too.

And they do it quietly.

And often, we don’t fully appreciate their becoming until years later.

When our children are born, the questions naturally surround the mother.

How is she feeling? Is she sleeping? How is she adjusting?

All important questions.

But sitting beside her is a man whose world has also split into a before and an after.

A man learning how to love in an entirely new way. Learning how to carry a fear he has never known before. Learning that his heart now exists outside of his body.

I can hear that young father in Edoardo’s writing.

I hear the excitement.

I hear the uncertainty.

I hear the awe.

And perhaps most moving of all, I hear the desire to get it right.

Years later, Edoardo published these poems in Letters from a Young Father. Here are some pieces from it.

Week 24 (In the rearview mirror)

What will I do with this world

With the raw and the right

The ugly and the good

What will your eyes touch first

How will I guide you through the unguidable

Today

Driving your mother

I took the roses way back home

Because you were in the car

I don’t know why

It just felt right driving down

The perfumed side of the street with my family

(Sometimes I shave before I speak to the belly of you

Or wear a special sweater to the ultrasound

I know it’s silly but the thought of you

Beckons me to seek what’s light in the world

& since it’s so often hard to find

My Sunday sweater will have to do)

As I read his words now, I realize that fathers often carry these feelings more quietly than we know.

Beneath the practical concerns and the everyday details lives something softer: wonder.

The wonder of holding your child for the first time.

The wonder of realizing that you would do absolutely anything for this tiny person.

The wonder—and perhaps the terror—of understanding that love can suddenly become so immense.

I long for the moment

You will run to me

With the same light

In your eyes

I will listen so you can have

The pleasure to teach me and I

The pleasure to show you

How much I believe

Parenthood changes a marriage, too.

The person you marry is not the same person who becomes your co-parent.

Over the years, through sleepless nights and school drop-offs, scraped knees and teenage heartbreaks, family dinners and ordinary Tuesdays, you watch someone become a father.

You see strengths you didn’t know were there.

You see vulnerabilities.

You discover patience in unexpected places.

And sometimes, if you’re lucky, you fall in love with a different version of the person you thought you already knew.

I certainly did.

Because one of the great privileges of a long marriage is getting a front-row seat to someone’s becoming.

We don’t just raise children together.

We witness each other becoming the people parenthood asks us to be.

Week 23 (a hard day and now this)

When you think all is lost

Just remember this.

Your hands touch by mistake

The world is Saved

You take a walk down a crowded street

The world is saved

You connect with a stranger

The world is saved

You fall

The world is saved

You get back up

The world is Saved

You say yes

The world is saved

You are born

The world is saved

Now our children are grown. The beautiful chaos of those early years has softened around the edges, becoming stories we tell and memories we revisit.

And these letters remind me of something simple but profound:

None of us arrive fully formed.

Not mothers.

Not fathers.

Not partners.

We become ourselves through loving other people.

This Father’s Day, I am thinking about the young father who wrote those letters.

The one who couldn’t possibly have known the people our children would become. Or the father he himself would become alongside them.

I am thinking about the man sitting beside me all those years ago, trying his best, loving deeply, and writing his way through one of life’s greatest transformations.

Because the truth is, the men we marry become fathers, too.

And looking now, I am not simply rereading old writing.

I am holding the first drafts of the father my children would grow up loving.

Happy Father’s Day to my Edoardo and to all the fathers who know.

xx-Sasha