About 13 years ago from right about now, I was a proud new dad. Four months earlier I was blessed to enter the world of fatherhood with the birth of my son Connor. Having a little bundle of joy that totally depends on you is one of the most wonderful things that can happen to a man.

What I’d especially love to do is put Connor in one of those pouches and place it around my shoulders and go on with long walks with him. Just the two of us. Of course, now he has no recollection of this, but it moments like those I’ll never forget.

But I also will remember something else that was not quite as pleasant. It wasn’t horrible, but it was telling.

New babies often bring out warm feelings from others as I’d saunter down the street. Many people would stop and talk and ask me all the requisite questions…all of which I was proud to answer. Then – and this happened to me at least half a dozen times – some would say…

“It’s so nice to see a dad take an interest in his child”.

I thought, WTF?

While I fully appreciated the sentiment, it was both complimentary to me but somewhat insulting to fathers overall. I see plenty of dads enthusiastically hanging out/playing with/taking care of their children. Whether the child is 13 weeks or 13 years old. I didn’t feel ‘special’ as if I was being different. Heck, many of the people I’d enthusiastically get in conversations with were fellow new dads.

Because a decent amount of the people that were impressed that I had taken an interest in my child were women who were a little older, I looked back to my childhood and remembered how much my father loved me and how much he “took an interest” in me. He was my role model and he’s why I love my son so much.

So then I thought of the other fathers that were in the neighborhood that I grew up in. Granted, not all of them were as affectionate as my dad, but the vast majority of them were loving, involved parents. Maybe not as much as the moms. But they certainly took a strong interest in their children. A solid majority. Period.

When I would try to explain this to some, they will try to explain back to me that not all dads are loving, are involved. Yes, I know that. I understand that. I get it. It isn’t necessary to explain to me that “not all dads are as affectionate as you”. But it is those that try to explain this to me, not I, that are missing the point.

The point is that a relatively small percentage of fathers (but, alas, too many) aren’t involved in their kids lives – by choice. We all have seen this and all have heard of this. But those are the exceptions and not the rule. As far as I’ve often been able to see, most dads aren’t second string parents, grudgingly going along with changing an occasional diaper or taking care of the little ones while the wife is out shopping. (I’d hear that too. I’d be with my infant son and someone would say in a well-meaning but ultimately condescending tone, “Giving mommy a break!”, positioning my actually being with my child as simply acting as filler).

It’s easy to automatically characterize us in a negative light because we often don’t ask for praise as being fathers. Or expectations start out too low of us because of a few bad apples. So when we do what we’re supposed to do, we are sometimes praised by those who are surprised that we actually show that we really love our kids and want to take an active role in raising them.

And there should be nothing surprising about that. We’re just being dads.

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