As of this writing, the due date for my first child is a mere 34 days away. And as I prepare to welcome my son into this world, I often find myself thinking of my father.

I think about all the things he did right, the things I’d like to emulate. The way he treated my mother. The ways he protected my brother and I. The example he set through his hard work. The way he embraced his intelligence, but didn’t rely on it — he relied instead on his work ethic and merged it with his natural abilities, and I saw the massive benefits of that mentality. The way he was always above board with people. I don’t think you’d be able to find a person on earth who would ever say they were uncertain about where they stood with my father. The way he got shit done, and how he never complained. And so much more. Just so much more.

As I am about to become a dad, I am, for the first time, coming to know my own.

And of course, as every generation does, I think of the things I’d like to adjust. How I hope I can teach my son to prioritize toughness less than I was asked to, at times. How I might be able to show my son the benefits of hard work without exposing him to the frayed wires that come with stress and exhaustion. How I can leave work and its accompanying headaches at the front door to make my son’s home a sanctuary, for both he and I.

But more than figuring out what to cling to and what to jettison, I find myself learning. In this strange phase — when my son exists, but only on the other side of a thin wall of my wife’s stomach skin — I am being told about the old days by people who were there, more than I’ve heard before. I am absorbing more of my father’s experience than I knew possible. It is strange, to be almost 40 years old and suddenly have this massive new thing in common with my own parents.

As I am about to become a dad, I am, for the first time, coming to know my own.

Here are some things people have told me about my dad since our second trimester began, things I didn’t know before:

My mother told me a few months ago that when she and my dad were married, they had — sum total between the two of them — 600 dollars.

They were married in the mid-1970s, but even adjusting for inflation, that adds up to NOT ENOUGH FUCKING MONEY.

Back then, it was enough to cover just a few months of rent for a little apartment on one of the less nice corners of the less nice half of my hometown.

My aunt and uncle told me that when my parents brought my older brother into the world, it made the whole family nervous. They did not have the money to support a family. And when they told everyone they’d be trying for a second, people actually intervened. They sat them down. They told them it was a mistake. They begged them to think really hard about the burden they were going to put on themselves.

People implored them, essentially, to not have me.

But they did. And right after I was born, they managed to scrape enough together to buy their first house.

My father was 27 years old when I was born.

Twenty-seven. Two kids and a mortgage. Twenty-seven.

When I was that age, I had just reentered therapy after enduring a series of brutal panic attacks brought on by my inability to handle the pressures of my life.

At 38, I look back and realize that my life had very few pressures at 27. I was living in New York City, paying my rent more and more with creative jobs, staying up late and doing comedy shows in the greatest comedy city in the world. My life was literally the artist’s ideal I’d dreamed of since I was a teenager, and I was living it. I was doing it. My dream life.

And I couldn’t handle it. Panic attacks so rough I wound up back on the couch.

He had two kids. And a mortgage.

My mom worked occasionally throughout my childhood, but by and large she stayed home and raised us.

He was 27, and if he fell down and broke his leg we would have been toast.

I’m still scared shitless that I won’t be able to figure out how to keep clothes on this kid’s back.

Photo: Chris Gethard

I’m 38. I was the host of a TV show. I’ve been very lucky to have a successful podcast, to sell a comedy special, to tour all over the world. And I take any money I make and stuff it away, into savings accounts and investments and insurance plans and all the other things one does to create a safety net.

And yet, I’m still scared shitless that I won’t be able to figure out how to keep clothes on this kid’s back.

I don’t know how he did it.

Hallie and I visited my folks over the New Year. My dad picked us up at the airport. We were all talking in the car when I heard Hallie mutter some things by then familiar to me.

“Oh hi, I feel you.”

My dad was understandably confused. “Wait, are you talking to me?”

I filled him in. “Oh, no, sorry about that,” I said. “She’s talking to the baby. That’s what she says when he starts kicking.”

My father let out a whimper. A momentary show of emotion, unabashed excitement and softness. Feelings I’d rarely if ever seen him express before.

I said nothing. But I had many thoughts. Most prominently, Where the hell has that been for the past four decades? I had to take a deep breath to avoid an instinctive resentment towards my own unborn son. He gets this version of this guy, this big teddy bear man? Why?

The answer is simple: Because my father can afford to let his guard down and be that guy now. With me, he was always one pinched nerve, one illness, one bad day away from crisis. With my little guy, he now gets to be soft. It’s good for him. Even more so, it will be amazing for my son. I look forward to hearing more whimpers.