Being a father is an incarnated experience.

You can explain what you are going through or share your emotions with guys who don't have kids yet. But they won't get it.

It takes living the fatherhood experience to understand it truly.

If you tell a pal about your seven-week streak of poor sleeping nights, he might try to approximate what it's like based on his own experience. "Ah! Yeah. I remember when I was in college, we used to go out every evening."

Ok, it's a bit caricatural. But not much; I've been on both sides.

It took my wife and I 10 years of relationship to welcome our first child. So, some of my friends had kids when I didn't.

I can't lie and say that I understood what they were going through. I could approximate ("Ah! You worry about your kid; Yeah, I also worry about something trivial about work"), but I couldn't really relate.

It took me a year or two after the birth of my daughter to start craving to talk to other dads about my experience. I was lucky that my priest and friend, Andreas, decided to assemble a group of fathers who met infrequently.

I went to the first gathering a bit reluctantly, but I left convinced of the benefits.

Since then, I've been trying to create conversations with other dads everywhere I could. Either one-on-one or by arranging small groups within communities I was already a part of.

Each time, I delight in hearing people share their joy to have found such a group.

Whether you're a new dad or a veteran, I encourage you to join or assemble a group of dads. Asking questions and sharing openly with other dads will benefit everybody.