As a bachelor you may have looked upon children as a minor nuisance, if you noticed them at all. In a restaurant, you may have asked to be seated away from the table with noisy kids. In a theater you may have impatiently shushed them. Or perhaps you were an older brother, expected to baby-sit on occasion, and you were experienced at watching over and keeping order among your younger siblings. Even so, it s unlikely you were ever eager to let your buddies see you playing nanny.
Women are the nurturers.
But times have changed. In spite of all those hours on the football practice field, you re expected to be gentle and sensitive, patient and calm. It s one thing to envision tossing a football, or playing catch, with one s child. Between the moment the pregnancy test hints that your life is about to change forever, and that golden day when you share your wisdom and leisure time with an eager, adoring child, there lies a shrouded continent of uncharted territory. It s shores are littered with dangers, from an emotional wife battered by hormonal storms, to the mysteries of feeding, burping and diapering your infant.