Today, while standing in line at Target to pay for the Men’s XXL t-shirts I had chosen to properly hide the underside of Andrea’s equator - I mean belly - I noticed a very small baby in it’s infant carrier perched on the cart in front of me. He looked to be just a couple weeks old and was so cute with a shock of black shaggy hair on top. I couldn’t keep my eyes off of him. It was yet another reminder of my impending parenthood.

I tried to be discreet because I could sense the mother’s nervousness of having a man she didn’t know smiling at her child. What she doesn’t know is that whenever I see a small child it reminds me of what’s to come for me and that I daydream about how I will be as a parent in similar situations. For one moment I am reminded that, very soon, I will have the same responsibilities, the same joys, the same frustrations that this person, who I don’t know but am somehow now connected, feels. It is then that I try to make eye contact with the mother and smile - trying to let her know that I know her secret of how great it is to be a parent. I want to tell her “Don’t worry! I’m not looking to kidnap your child - I’m just envious that I don’t have my babies with me yet.”

In a larger sense, it’s sad that my children will be born into a society that makes women wary of strange men around their children. I imagine women don’t get the same response in similar situations. Maybe someday men will get credit for being just as nurturing and capable of loving a child as a woman. At least I know in my family it can start with me.