Today, many of you are celebrating the first superhero in your life: your fathers! They are the silent pillars of strength for our family, and will always protect us till eternity ❤️ Here at HHWT, it marks the first year of our co-founder, Mikhail, being a father! He and his wife, Suzana brought their first child to the world last year, Sofia, who's turning 1 soon! We decided to speak to him to hear what he has learned about fatherhood.
#1: Fatherhood is not great, at all ...
To be honest, there's a list of things that follows along with being a father that I absolutely dislike. For starters, I don't like not having enough sleep. I don't like not having time (and lesser money) to spend for myself or with my wife. There's a huge change in my lifestyle; from having only 15 mins for meals to waking up in the middle of the night to change diapers. But then I realised something: if I centred my entire life around myself, and my own needs, I think it would have been quite empty and purposeless. I feel that if you cannot truly sacrifice anything, then that means you've never loved anything in your life. For me, Sofia is highly important, and I'm willing to sacrifice everything, no matter how tough it is.
#2: ... But seeing Sofia's growth makes it worth the struggle
One of the joys of being a father is being able to watch her grow up and learn new things, and being a part of her life every single step of the way! Us parents have the ability to shape our children to be the best versions of themselves in the future, and it's truly an honour to have the opportunity to do so ? Personally for me, I want to avoid the things I felt that were not right in my own childhood. It's all improving the next generation and making them better than us! Also, it's a bonus that she's adorable and has that nice baby smell too ?
#3: Choosing between HHWT and Sofia
Having kids make your life a little more hectic and busy and complicated, so the biggest problem for me is time. Two opposing forces come to play - dealing with Sofia and my long-time baby, HHWT. If I don't tend to HHWT, I will be responsible for the adverse impact on my staff, and the same situation applies to Sofia as well! As a result, choosing what's more important and what needs more of my attention often comes with a slew of my own personal insecurities as a father. For instance, am I a bad father if I have to go on a business trip that clashes with my daughter's birthday?
Sometimes, society expects you to behave a certain way without knowing your constraints, and it breaks my heart when I have to give up one thing for the other, but sometimes the right choice is the most difficult; I'm sure fathers everywhere must have been in my shoes before ? However, I always remind myself of my ultimate goal in life: to grow HHWT and provide a comfortable life for my wife and daughter; getting there requires a lot of sacrifice on my part, and you got to do what you got to do, right?
#4: Plan for future disasters in your life
As the old saying by Benjamin Franklin goes, "If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail!”. We all have free will, and we should do everything within our power to optimise our lives! If we waste it away with a complacent attitude, then we're being ungrateful for the blessing we have. Once you've done everything you can, leave it up to Allah s.w.t. and accept the outcome! It will provide you with great peace of mind knowing you are prepared and your family will be safe and taken care of.
And if all things break loose, here's a little reminder for you: our children are literally made to survive our shortcomings as parents, and they can even thrive in the face of them ? Fatherhood is going to be a wild, hair-pulling, frightening journey, but it's really rewarding. Nothing in life, just like fatherhood is all bad; it depends on your perspective (and definitely the joyful smiles from our kids).
P.S. Read more stories like these right here: