Read books and blogs. Talk with other parents. Go to birthing classes, even parenting classes, before your baby comes. All a good idea, but nothing will truly prepare you for parenthood than actually becoming a parent.
The weight of responsibility. The financial costs. The energy they have. The stubbornness they deliver. The temper-tantrums. All will humble you if you aren’t there yet.
“Who of us is mature enough for offspring before the offspring themselves arrive? The value in marriage is not that adults produce children but that children produce adults.”
—Peter De Vries
Sure, you don’t have to be married to get the full effect. Just pay attention to how you are parenting, whether co-parenting or single parenting.
There are full grown men out there acting like children, even though they have kids of their own, but the men who look at themselves, really think about their actions and words to their kids, are bound to grow into adults.
Father Through Me 