I’m assuming it has to happen. You get an uneasy–albeit momentary–feeling that you don’t like being a father. It’s a shameful thing to feel and you don’t talk about it. But the thought has to occasionally occur. The thought that, hey, maybe today I don’t want the responsibility that comes with being a father. It just seems improbable that we’d always feel glad to be a dad.

I ask this because I’m reading John Updike’s “Rabbit” series–the tale of man maturing in America. It started with “Rabbit, Run” in 1960, then “Rabbit Redux” in ‘71. Now I’m onto “Rabbit is Rich” (’81). It’s really an amazingly realistic chronicle of a man going through different parts of his life. And you have to admire the author for a) being so talented, and b) having the foresight to create a series of books over such a long span of time (over 30 years as the series ends with “Rabbit at Rest” in 1990).

In the books, Rabbit (Harry Angstrom) has a rather troubled relationship with his son Nelson. Here’s the passage that inspired this post:

…he began to feel crowded, living with the kid. As long as Nelson was socked into baseball statistics or that guitar or even the rock records that threaded their sound through all the fibers of the house, his occupation of the room down the hall was no more uncomrfortable than the persistence of Rabbit’s own childhood in an annex of his brain; but when the stuff with hormones and girls and cars and beers began, Harry wanted out of fatherhood.

I’d imagine during the early childhood years, the newness and glow of fatherhood keeps any thoughts like these at bay. But when you get into those “troubled teen” years, the title of “father” could potentially start to weigh you down.

This blog is meant to be about celebrating the highs and lows of fatherhood, so I’d like to hear about some of the lows. Dads, chime in.