Just curious. I’m not asking if you would or would not want to have more kids. Would you, having experienced fatherhood and knowing what it’s like, if sent back in time, still want to still have your children to parent? Reading on another board, a lot of anonymous posters indicated no, they would not want to be fathers as the experience didn’t turn out well. “I love them, but…”
I would not want to live over my life again, and I have enjoyed most of it.
My boys? You bet. They are a source of joy and pride. I do not know what I did but my sons are the kind of men that, well they are men.
And with out them I would not have my daughter in laws. One of my treasured pictures is of my three girls at my youngest wedding.
And the best part Grandchildren. Like most grandparents if I had known how much fun they would be I would have had the grandchildren first.
Absolutely. In fact, the other day I was telling someone how I always have problems with those hypothetical “If you could do one thing over” type questions simply because I couldn’t risk NOT having the two wonderful children I have.
My two daughters bring me more joy than I’d imagined. Oh sure, they can be inconvenient, but I’d never trade convenience for the happiness they bring me.
Yes, no doubt about it. My two young daughters are the most important thing to me bar none. I wanted to have them, I got what I wanted, and it turned out just the way I thought it would. I would change lots of things in life but they would never be on the list even for a millisecond.
Not trying to be too corny but absolutely yes. My daughter is the best thing that I’m likely to ever help create in this life. Despite my less than stellar fatherly skills she has turned out better than I hoped. She is now a young adult and she sometimes teases me for treating her as a little kid but I can’t help it.
She called me an hour ago to wish me a happy fathers day on her cell phone, in her car, on her way to work.
I have something in my eye…
Absolutely yes. My two daughters are awesome and (along with my wife) are the best part of my life.
Not only that, but I found out last week that there is a third on the way. We tried to have a third kid for years, finally we even went so far as going to a fertility doctor. He told us that the chance we would ever conceive again was <1%, even with the help of drugs like clomid. We gave it up, and now, low and behold, 4 years later, away we go on the roller coaster of life. On the one hand I feel too old to have another kid (my wife and I both just turned 40), but on the other hand it is going to be awesome! Kids are the best!
Now the SDMB knows something that my wife and I have not shared with anyone yet!
This is my second Fathers’ Day - last 13 months with my daughter have been hard work but wonderful, and I’m looking forward to adding to our family soon.
I’ve no doubt there’s a lot of hard work and heartache ahead, but watching our little bubba this afternoon chasing ducks and giggling like a loon makes my heart sing like nothing else I’ve known.
I would love to have the chance to do it all over again. There have been some frustrations but they’ve been far outweighed by the great moments which occur daily. I like seeing them get older but that magical period from about two-and-a-half to four years of age is unbelievable. I have had so much fun with them in that span.
Yea, so far it’s pretty worth it. A lot of things are lost, but the things that are lost are generally trivial ‘lifestyle’ things. I can’t go out to the club and hook up with the hot chick, and while I would still love to do that, I don’t value it anymore.
That is EXACTLY how I see it as well. My first marriage is my greatest regret, but I know that if I didn’t mess that one up I wouldn’t have my current daughter. So wishing to have my first wife back is wishing my current wife and daughter away.
In a heartbeat.
My son is my best buddy in the world and the one person I trust will always love me. Watching him grow from the tiny, red-faced, football-sized bundle that we took home from the hospital into an intelligent, articulate, imaginative, happy firecracker of a five-year-old has been the greatest joy of my life; the biggest and best adventure in a life full of adventure.
A few years ago, when mi boyo was only 3, we went into the shop/studio of a sweet, wise old Ukrainian jeweler. In the course of our conversation, he asked how old my son was. I told him. He looked puzzled for a second, then asked how old I was. I told him, “Forty-three. My son was a gift for my middle age.” He smiled and said, “That’s the best gift a man can ever receive.”
And he was right.
Congratulations, brother! What crazy luck; it’s like winning the lottery three times!
There are a lot of things in my life I have questioned - my career and its choices, where I have chosen to live, what I’ve purchased. Lots of things where I wonder “What if I had…/What if I hadn’t…”
My wife and my kids have never been among those things. Not even remotely.
My user name pretty much explains my answer, but I’ll say it anyway…you betcha.
Oh yes! I have 2 sons, now in their early 20’s. They are fine young men and that is a credit to them as much as to me.
I was a single father mostly. The story is too long to tell and cannot be told fairly from my veiwpoint. Fairness requires an opportunity to rebut. So I won’t drag out all the sorrid details. Drugs, sex, rock and roll, poor spelling skills, big hair, awfull clothing, it was the early '80’s and everyone was doing it. No excuses. Except for MTV when they still played music, I blame them.
There have been other threads on SDMB about ‘what would you go back in time and change?’
This is where I get conflicted. On the one hand I should have never got involved with the woman that became the mother of my sons. She even scammed the guys out of a small inheritence from her side of the family when they reached age and she blew it on whatever. They haven’t spoken to their mother in many years, which is very sad. Their decision.
Should I have walked on and not met her, not married her? That seems like a good idea until I think, the boys wouldn’t be here.
Life is an interwoven cloth. Remove a thread and it falls apart. The results at the end are what matters.
Just got back from lunch and beers with the boys for Father’s Day. That meant more to me than any present I could have received.
I would go through it all again. To meet such fine people that my sons have become.
I have exactly the same problem. I’ve made a ton of bad decisions in my life, but whenever I wish I could go back (knowing what I do now) to “fix it up”, the earliest date I can entertain is the day after my younger daughter was conceived.
Being a father has been, and continues to be, an incredibly hard task and I really don’t want to have to start from scratch again, but I have never once regretted the decision to have our two girls.
My spouse and kids are the best things that have ever happened to me, and a lot of good stuff has happened to me. No question about it.
No doubt in mind. Wouldn’t change a thing. There’s almost nothing better in the world than sleeping in on Father’s Day, only to be awakened by your children jumping on you and handing you homemade card. It’s one of my favorite holidays of the year.
My one regret is not having more children. They are a true pain in the ass and worth every pain, the ungrateful *&^%*s. Now I want grandchildren.
I only have one serious complaint about my four children, aged 23 to 31: they are waiting too long to produce grandchildren. (My brother and my brother-in-law are both grandfathers, but not me, who’s older than both of them).