St. Patrick’s Day 2011. That’s the day that I became a father. I remember the moment that L was born quite well, despite the sleep deprivation that began on March 19, 2011 — the day we left the hospital room.

I cried. Joy, fear, all the other feels rolled into one and I wept the moment I saw her. I only cried that first moment, and it was a very emotionally charged time for me, but that’s not the only birth experience and it’s time that people start admitting it and even talking about it. In the four years since L’s birth I’ve spoken to tons of dads about the moment that fatherhood started for them and I’ve heard just about as many different accounts of fatherhood as people I’ve spoken to. But they’ve all said the same thing — there was immense pressure to have the classic “first dad moment”.

Some did. They had the same emotionally charged moment with their child that I did as I wept with joy and fear at the presence of this person that I would at some point embarrass to the point that she’d scream “I HATE YOU” as she slammed the door in an adorable righteous rage. (FYI that only took me three years to get to — see if you can beat that!) But other dads told me that didn’t feel any immediate connection to their new little bundle of sleep deprivation. Some had it sneak up on them at bizarre times — a first poop (the kids, not theirs), a first burp, a first smile. Some didn’t feel the overwhelming love that will eventually get me arrested for breaking the leg of the first person to break her heart until they heard their kids first words. Some are still waiting. But these are all good dads, even the ones that are waiting. They care for their kids. They protect them. They’re firm but fair.

All of experiences above are normal, because there is no normal. Despite the description that was created to help craft the image of the “sensitive man” in the 80’s (remember when TV dads sat in the waiting room with cigars and didn’t see the kid for hours?), the first experience of fatherhood is as varied as there are people to have the experience. Every relationship is unique, even the relationship between you and your progeny. You aren’t living in Barry Sonnenfeld’s brilliant Adams Family Values and let’s face it, you’re no Raul Julia. You can’t even dance.

So don’t worry if you don’t immediately feel like a “dad”. You’re absolutely not alone. And we should all remember this and talk about it. New dads shouldn’t feel the immense pressure of society expecting them to react in a specific way. These new recruits have more pressing things to deal with — namely taking care of an amazingly strong wife/girlfriend/partner/whatever who just brought a human being into the world through a space measured in centimeters and figuring out first hand what meconium is and how extraordinarily difficult it is to get off of your hand.

So let’s all agree to ease off on the pressure to have the perfect first impression of fatherhood. Trust me, there will be plenty of other pressure to deal with. For example — how do you get ground-in Play-Doh off the couch before your wife gets home and realizes that you were just having a Play-Doh fight with a four year old in the living room?