Column: When no one sees or applauds

We’ve all been children once. And none of us got to choose our parents. We got what we got. Some had a dad who saw them, who was there, who smelled safely of coffee and snus. Others had a dad who lived in the house but weren't in the room. Some grew up without anyone who ever called them their child.

But no matter what kind of dad we got, many of us eventually end up standing there ourselves, with a child in our arms or a hole in our chest, trying to understand what it means to be a dad. What it means to be a man. What it takes to be a safe person for a brand-new person.

I remember when I became a dad myself. I thought it was going to be all about knowing what to do and how to do it, but instead it was about daring to feel. I remember how scared I was that I wouldn’t be enough — and how that changed the first time my child fell asleep on my chest. That’s when I understood that my “why” wasn’t to be perfect, but to be present. To stay — no matter how insecure I felt. A struggle that 24 years later is still ongoing.

For me, fatherhood wasn’t just a new role — it was a mirror. A mirror that reflected everything I had longed to be, but also everything I was afraid of becoming. It exposed my anxiety about not being good enough in life, my longing to matter without performing, and my battle with all the ideas about what a dad is “supposed” to be.

When I talk about masculinity with young men and grown men, the father always shows up. The present one, the absent one, the one who tries, and the one who gave up. But we rarely talk about parenthood as a part of manhood. It’s like manhood and care still belong to different camps, different languages.

We men have learned to measure value in achievement, strength, control. But children don’t measure us like that. They measure us in closeness, patience, the ability to just be there when no one sees or applauds. And there, in those small everyday moments — the diaper change, the bedtime talk, the look of trust — another kind of manhood is formed. A manhood that doesn’t have to prove anything except the courage to love and be loved back by a small human.

There’s no manual. No facade that holds in the long run. But there is a direction: stay. Meet our children with everything we have, even when we feel rejected, tired, or misunderstood. Build trust hour by hour, day by day. And maybe that’s where, in that practice, we become safer fathers — and safer humans.

So — to all dads, and to everyone who longs to understand their own dad: let Father’s Day this year be a little less about ties, socks, and gifts — and more about conscious presence. About daring to feel, daring to talk, daring to stay.

We got what we got as children. But our children get what we give. And maybe it’s right there — in that difference, in the meeting between the child and the imperfect adult — that love becomes real and care becomes possible.

Marco Vega
project leader and educator at MÄN