My Daughter and I – Who’s Teaching Who?
Choosing between a high-flying career in finance and having a family was an easy choice for Nelson dad, Rene van Sint-Annaland.
He shares the reasoning that led him to choose bibs over boardrooms.
My wife, Erica, and I have one daughter, Shanna – nearly five years old now. Naturally our lives changed from the moment she was born and are still changing all the time.
Erica’s job (physiotherapist) was put on hold for a couple of years when Shanna was born, while I kept working as a Finance and Administration Manager for a global company. It was a time that we perhaps learned a lesson the hard way.
If you go against the grain of life, life is going to be frustrating and you will repeat the same mistakes over and over until you find a solution for yourself.
It took us (and me in particular) some time to figure a few things out. I’ll give you some examples that were applicable to me.
How can I be emotionally be involved with my child when I have hardly any time to spend with her?
In the corporate world things are pretty wacky. We have bosses to answer to, power struggles to overcome, psychological and economic security to defend, boring jobs to do, go there every day at the same time whether we like it or not, what a struggle!
What message do I send to my child by living such a life?
How can I tell my child about the world if I can’t understand the problems and the sorrow in the world. Sure, we all know the solutions, but the world hasn’t changed dramatically since the beginning of the human species.
We are still killing each other and really believe that capitalism/communism/christianity/buddhism or some other belief system can make things better. What did I say about repeating the same mistakes over and over, and are our personal problems really different from the problems in the world, or in our society?
You need to drink lots of good, strong coffees to become a father (speed up that rusty ol’ brain, amongst other things).
The results were astonishing. In the last three years things have really taken some shape. Erica and I both work part time, one in the morning, the other in the afternoon. We both play the same part in Shanna’s life.
My career plummeted from a business suit position to a t-shirt job (I work in an ice cream cafe, owned by friends) – I actually enjoy doing the work.
Erica was happy to breastfeed Shanna for as long as she wanted/needed it.
We don’t eat a lot of meat anymore.
Shanna doesn’t need to go to school just because she is five, we believe it is our responsibility to provide her with some life skills. The three of us are having a jolly good time, most of the time.
Of course many other issues are related to this and not discussed here, it would be so boring and more to the point it would be suspect.
I don’t know anything really about being a father, but I am happy to find out what it means while I am doing it. For me it is not something separate from the world with its beauty, mysteries and dark sides. I have to say, though, that I love doing it.
I have also learned a lot about good coffee in the process. I even roast my own beans nowadays….
