Our kids at the Great Vermont Corn Maze, Danville, VT
October 2025
It’s one of those things in life where I’ll probably never truly know ‘why,’ but for whatever reason, I wanted kids. Since when I don’t know, but I do remember telling my mom that “I’m ready to be a father”. . . in middle school. (My mom, at the time, was not amused.) At this age I could mostly laugh it off, but I do have a tiny cringe when the memory visits me now and then.
It took me some serious therapy to finally admit that I wanted to have kids. I used to say to whomever I was dating that “I could go either way” on kids. I had a few reasons for that, including the fact that I wasn’t the one who would have to carry the child, or give birth, or nurse. I also had this belief that if it were to happen, it will ‘naturally’ happen, as if our intentions didn’t matter. (I also didn’t have the courage to foster or adopt on my own.) But the biggest reason was because I couldn’t come up with a rational reason for wanting kids, let alone a good reason—if I didn’t know why, did I really ‘know?’
The reasons for wanting children might perhaps be ‘obvious’ for those who grew up in religious households, but that was almost the opposite of how I grew up. Also, as I continued my education in psychology during the ’90s and ’00s amidst torrents of reports on toxic men, I felt quite selfish as a man to want kids. I had very little positive role models of fatherhood throughout my life, so while I’ve seen plenty of what not to do, I had yet to see what to do. A simple desire to want kids felt rather irresponsible—I felt like I needed to ‘know,’ with a solid, rational reason. But ultimately, I had to be okay with the fact that I’ll never have a rational reason. I just wanted kids. Period.
Of course, wanting kids didn’t mean I knew how to raise them. I now ‘know’ what it’s like to be a father, which was far beyond what I could’ve imagined—good, bad, and ugly. But, I still can’t claim that I ‘know’ what I’m doing. Parenting has been nothing but trial and error with the best of intentions. No parenting book could’ve adequately prepared me for my unique experience as a parent (to two unique kids), because it’s a different kind of knowledge altogether. Also, fatherhood is the kind of ‘knowledge’ similar to ‘knowing’ how to ride a bike. Can I learn to ride a bike by reading about its physics? Same with parenting. Further, I had to learn to be ok with not knowing—not to mention kids change fast anyway, so every time I started feeling like, “Yeah, I got this,” I’ve been shoved off my bike so that I could learn to ride again, just differently.
Which also made me realize how much my own parents didn’t know what they were doing. I’m not saying this to blame them (and there was therapy for that), but to appreciate their struggles as parents. They grew up in a completely different world—in Japan, during and after World War II—where only the very privileged had anything to hold on to from the past and everyone else had to rebuild their lives from absolute nothing. (We were the latter, just to be explicit.) They didn’t grow up with the ‘parental warmth and compassion’ that we all now expect every child to grow up with. They grew up under strict codes of survival, observing their parents working day and night just to feed and put a roof over them. They are who they are—as parents and as people—because of how they had to grow up with (i.e., their parents). But hey, they survived, and hence here I am, and so are my kids.
Ok, sure—I might not be able to fault them for who they are, and they may ‘know’ a thing or two about raising kids. But still, did I want these ‘old-world people’ around my kids in this new world that their generation created, yet ironically, don’t understand? Well, I’ve had to completely change my beliefs about the roles that other adults—including family, friends, and acquaintances—play in children’s lives. I used to believe that I had to be extremely selective about who I would allow to be around my kids. What are their educational backgrounds? Their political inclinations? Religious beliefs? Drug history? I have thankfully come to realize that these criteria are completely misguided, even if I were to defend my previous self saying that they were with the best of intentions. But, had I proceeded with it, I could’ve seriously damaged my kids. Nowadays, I’ve come to believe that the only criterion that matters is this: does this person have my children’s best interest in mind? If so, then it’s a blessing, and they are more than welcome around my kids. My kids will experience that love could flow from anyone, and it has nothing to do with where people come from or what they believe. Even better if they’ve raised kids themselves—they’re teaching me a lot, including not sweating the details and letting my kids take the lead in their own learning (. . . although patience is not my virtue). After all, they have been around the block—they do know a thing or two. . . way more, actually. And, by my kids experiencing others’ love first hand, hopefully they’ll grow up to love others, no matter where they come from or what they believe.
Oh, and lastly, but most importantly—let us all give mothers their due love and support!