I’m sitting in a hospital room at the moment watching my wife breastfeed my 11 hour old daughter. I’m a little confused at the moment because I don’t feel it. By “it” of course, I mean that strange feeling deep inside that I’m no longer the most important person. I felt it around this point with my other three children but for some reason i don’t feel it at this moment.

When we had our first child I was so excited. I knew things would be a bit different in the family dynamic but I’m a tough guy right? I can handle change well. Things were different than I expected though. When a couple gets married, each of them has the honor of being THE most important person in the world to someone. The moment a baby comes into the picture this changes, for the father. I knew of course, that this would be the case. The mother now has a baby literally sucking the life out of her body. She is now THE most important person in the world to two people, her husband, and now her child. The child obviously now dethrones the husband in importance. This is the point where things get weird for the selfish husband. At this point in his life, he is for the first time in a LONG time no longer the most important person in someone else’s life. This happens to all fathers, and if I had to guess, it impacts them a bit more than they’d care to admit.

I remember having these thoughts. Silly things like “man… if there was a fire right now and she had to choose… she’d let me burn alive in a heartbeat.” You know, rational everyday thoughts.

Obviously my wife still loved me, she let me know in a myriad of ways. It was a cold hard fact, however, that I wasn’t her primary focus anymore. This simple fact cut me a bit more than I cared to admit, but I took comfort in the fact that when my first daughter got a little older she’d become a Daddy’s girl and I would be the most important person to someone again. I’m an idiot. This didn’t happen. My daughter for some reason isn’t the cuddly type, so I was forced to continue to wallow in my really-important-to-a-lot-of-people-but-not-the-most-important-to-anyone self pity.

It wasn’t until my son turned two (six years later) that he looked up at me unprompted and said “Dad, you’re my favorite person” that I was able to regain my self-loving role again. I’m not saying that what I was feeling was right, I’m just saying it’s how I felt. Why was this moment so emotional to me? Why did I almost cry? Self-worship. As a father of four now eight years removed from cutting the first umbilical cord I can plainly see it now.

Authentic, selfless fatherhood doesn’t build you into a better person. It almost seems to cut you into one. At times the process isn’t pleasant. At times it feels as if you’re losing something that you had. It’s like a continual refinement of the soul that involves putting others before yourself. It involves conducting silly little mental exercises as a reminder to become humble.

My wife just finished feeding our new daughter and now I’m watching her wrap her up baby-burrito style. I know I’m not the most important person in this room right now, and I’m very very cool with that. My wife is the most important person in the world to me, and I’m happy for her that that’s the case. It’s time to go burp my little girl.