Effect Essay (With a bit more detail :)

Becoming a father and being a father has changed my life considerably. Now I look back at the way I used to be and think ‘what an idiot’. Reality hit me hard, like a closed fist to the side of the head when a nurse handed me a new baby boy and said, “Here you go daddy.” I remember thinking,” Daddy? I’m not a daddy, I’m a dumb punk kid with a shit job and no money, how can I be a daddy?” Then I realized I didn’t have a choice in the matter, I had to deal with what I had in my arms and do the best I could for it. Looking back at the situation now I think of the three effects it had on my life. Responsibility being the first, it may have been fun making this baby but now its life depends on mine. Maturity, how could I be a good father if I was a bad kid? And third, would be improvement. I needed to give this little guy everything in my power to make his life better.

At the age of eighteen I didn’t have a care in the world, but at that age a lot of people don’t. About the only thing I was concerned with was getting f***ed up and having a good time doing it. Responsibility was something I didn’t take seriously at all. I barely made it through high school, partying all the way through and drinking my way right out of college the first time around. Right around that time my girlfriend told me that she was pregnant. This life changing, unexpected surprise gave me a wakeup call but it didn’t really sink in. As I mentioned previously, it didn’t hit me until the first time I held him. That’s when I realized things needed to change and I had to do the changing. My partying stopped first which saved money to pay for medical bills. Once the bills were paid I started saving the extra money but still was not making much extra. Then an old friend of mine that I used to work with gave me a phone call. He had gotten a job in a local machine shop with nothing more than a high school diploma and was making a substantial amount of money and wanted to know if I was interested. Of course I was, so I went down and filled out a job application. They called me back less than a week later and set up an interview at which I was hired on the spot. This was a step in the right direction toward my goal of getting out of town and moving back to the country to raise a family. That was the first responsibility I had taken in years.

When reality finally hit me, it hurt. I was constantly getting myself into trouble at eighteen, to the point that every cop in town knew me, and not in a good way. The idea of becoming a father terrified me only because I knew that on my current path I would make a bad one. So I changed course, I stopped associating with my ‘friends’ that only seemed to get me into more trouble. In fact I even moved in with my girlfriend twenty-five miles away, partly to get away from them and stay out of trouble. Even after the baby was born though I still was just a kid with a kid, not a father. It took us months to adjust to the idea of being responsible parents. After a year or so of living in town we moved again, back to where I was from out in the country. I think it was the best move we ever made, and my old ‘friends’ never came around because we were just another couple that had kids. My girlfriend and I became Husband and Wife not to long after, another move I won’t soon regret. We did it, we were finally adults, living in our own home, working to pay the bills and raising a happy family. My parents always told me I needed to act my age.

Improvement, a lot lies within that one word. More than just growing up and learning from past mistakes. It consists of constantly finding better ways to do things, and making things better for all of us. I now have been doing that ‘new’ job for over five years and was able to work my way up a little. That job has been able to provide us with several things that would not have been possible on my old jobs salary. As of today I make more than double I did when my first son was born, the only down side is that the bills have doubled too. Fortunately we were able to move into my grandparent’s old house which was left to me when my grandmother past away, not having that mortgage payment has given us a little extra to work with. Every penny I’ve saved though has gone into improving the house, my wife and I have put a lot of time into it by renovating every room except for one and that’s on the to-do list. However, all the work hasn’t been for us, it is for a better place to raise a family. I also started going back to school part time to earn a degree and with that hopefully provide even more to our cause. More than that though, I have improved as a person. The person I once was scares the crap right out of me and I hope to instill the values that I’ve learned into my children before they go down the wrong path.

In closure, I wouldn’t change a thing. My wife and I are now on working on boy number three and above all, we are happy. The boys are happy too and they know they have a mom and dad that love them and would do anything for them. I hope they make the right decisions in life and lead good ones, all I can do is teach them what I know and hope for the best. After all, once they are older and grown up, their lives are in their own hands.