There is a couple of things that happen to you when you watch the birth of your first-born.
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There is an overwhelming sense of joy at their arrival, relief your partner is okay and then slowly it hits.
The sense and recognition that you are fully responsible for this little life you are cradling.
It’s equal parts thrilling and terrifying.
As your child grows you hope to instill in them the values you hold dear, help guide them through life’s challenges and hope it holds them in good stead.
There is no secret recipe for success but there are moments as a parent when you catch a glimpse of success and the feeling is unbelievable.
This editor and my eldest daughter, who is now 11, are unashamed Hawkheads and one of our many favourite dad-daughter acitivities is going to Illawarra Hawks games.
Recently we attended a home game, but we took along a couple of guests.
During the game my girl won the prize of a Hawks pencil case from the Hawks cheerleaders for dancing during one of the breaks in play.
My daughter could see the younger child who was with us was upset they’d missed out so without blinking she handing him the pencil case. It made our little guest happy and it made her happy, doing the good deed.
A couple of weeks later, at another home game, she danced again and won another pencil case from a Hawks cheerleader again.
Afterwards a gentleman introduced himself to me as the father of the cheerleader and revealed he’d organised his dancer daughter to give my daughter a prize because of the way she danced enthusiastically each week.
I shared with the dancer’s dad the story of weeks before and he looked at Ella and said: “See what happens when you do something good for someone?”.
They were the exact words I’d said to her weeks earlier on leaving the stadium after I’d told her how proud I was of her.
We have always told our daughter to approach life with a kind heart. Positive life lesson reinforced. Mission accomplished.
I thanked the dad for his kindness and smiled knowing it would be a lesson never forgotten.
