Don't Give Up (and don't sell your daughter)

For those new fathers about to give up when they feel stumped by a baby's crying, there is only one piece of advice: don't quit, the challenges will only get more interesting.

You might go from tree surgeon to wheelchair bound father of a 3-year-old who occasionally goes running off in the mall, like British writer Tim Rushby-Smith. You might end up like upstate New Yorker Jeff Davey's, a single father of four boys, aged six to 13. You might even end have to put up living as the butt (and father of the butt) of mockery until you end up with a battleship commissioned in your honor (as POTUS 43 Bush gave to papa 41 did). But where fatherhood takes you, it will be interesting and you shouldn't give up.

And, needless to say, no matter how frustrating things are, you absolutely should not act like a California pop and sell your daughter for $16,000 in cash, 150 cases of beer, 150 cases of soda, several cases of meat and two cases of wine. It may seem like a pretty good price at the time, but it probably won't work out well.