The story of a father about the circumstances experienced in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

within a stage that reproduces a disrupted natural order: incubators, parenteral feeding, mechanical lactation; technology as a necessary but grotesque surrogate. The father, standing in the halls or undaunted, close to his children, swallows the anguish or escapes from reality in a sort of dignified manner. But fathers, in that barren nowhere awaiting for luck or calamity, is also aware. Many do not know that they know, others think they do not know, others say they do not know as much as mothers. Left aside, until fortune makes its call, sometimes fathers are capable of perceiving things in all their crude reality and do not know how to voice them. What does a father know about his children? He knows about their ancestors: about their grandparents, great-grandparents, the family history and their good fortune and hard times, wars, exile and losses. He also knows about hopes and wishes. He knows the plot into which his children are welcome. That is not to know little. Without knowing it, fathers also know about their genes and history and, above all, they know about their system of values, their material and spiritual beliefs. A father knows how to preserve his child’s dignity. “Dignity” is based on thought and acceptance. Fathers should be able to “dignify” their children, even in a place where their view of the world is criticized by the dominant belief of what a father or mother “should” want. A good father knows how to honor his children’s life, even if it means accepting a tragic ending and acting according to his ethical, religious and human convictions. A father should also be capable of honoring his child’s death. He should be able to recognize what the limit is. We fathers, wandering around units of neonatology, plunged into despair, can do much more than performing surrogate maternal tasks. Those who stand there next to cribs, close to our wives, should watch over the dignity, honor and The story of a father about the circumstances experienced in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit