When faced with a disheartening parenting situation, Byron Noel Gordon found encouragement when he confided in a community of fellow fathers.
It began when my daughter was three. I’d been reading to her every night before bed for the past year. Then, one evening, she said she wanted mom to read to her instead.
I didn’t think much about it at the time. Sure, Mom can read to you, I replied. The next night, she asked for mom again. It started a common pattern and just like that, I was replaced by my wife as reader.
I started witnessing a more intimate bonding being created between my daughter and her mother. It wasn’t just the reading, but more and more my daughter seemed to want to spend more time with her mother. And the bond I thought I was creating with my daughter began fraying.
It wasn’t that she didn’t love me, I know she did. But something that I came to look forward to was taken away from me.
I was admittedly being silly but when I asked her the question, how much do you love me?