Pacifier making you a father

As you’re putting a pacifier into a baby’s mouth, you don’t even understand how much you grow. I have a six-months-old baby at home named Wilma, who sometimes likes to cry in the middle of the night.

As a father I want to be a good protector and educator. To take time for her and truly watch her becoming a beuty. At the same time, in Rumania it was recently made a study that showed that so- called-fathers at an average are spending 2 minutes a week with their children.

Two minutes.

A warning signal to me aswell! And honouring the truth I have to admit that there really are moments when I would like to put my head-of-the-family-head under the sand. And wait for Greta to do everything at home. Also to put the pacifier in Wilmas mouth.

At the same time, lately I feel that the Bible has directed me to a greater wish to serve. I feel that my task as a father is to grow in patience (also through pain).

In one word I’ve understood that to be a good teacher also at home – to make the gift work – I have to grow in patience, forbearance. As Paul and Jacob put it.

So. Some of the last nights. I wake up and feel how I have to get ahead of Greta and pull my tired feet up under me. To walk through a dark room to the cradle, where a young lady with a wrinkled face stands on her knees.

And sometimes she even just continues crying to get her will through. A stubborn little thing.

So I put the pacifier in her mouth, lift her back to the side, hold my hand on her and whisper: good night! Through this, she learns how to sleep alone as children do. Me, on my part, learn how to take my first steps.

As a father