Before my daughter was born, men my age were happy to lather on the unsolicited advice about what being a dad would be like. I would eventually come to find that it wasn't really advice at all, but rather a sort of superficial observation, masculine margarine about what it feels like to be the Fatherly Influence. I would come to realize how little these freelance counselors knew about their own children.

"For the first seven months, they're pretty much just digestive tracts," said one friend, whom I shall call Mr. Half-at-Home.

"It's the most meaningful thing that will ever happen to you," said Mr. Oprah's Book Club.

"To tell you the truth, I can't wait to go to work in the morning," said Mr. End of His Rope.

Of course, five days a week these men pack off and dutifully trudge to a desk somewhere, though a few of them aren't necessarily chained to that desk. There's a certain sort of man I know, for instance, who is a writer for a big, sometimes meaningful publication. And from my perspective, sitting here in Los Angeles at noon, still in my underpants, he just may be the most envied creature in all of manhood.

I imagine him now off in the bush meeting with some aggrieved group of third world rebels or drinking good wine in a European capital with a certain minister of something or other. Maybe he's beating it across a Latin American border with a group of barefoot migrants or meditating over a body of water in a South Asian jungle.

Wherever he may be, I am consumed by him and his adventures. You see, I was once one of his species, a jet-set correspondent for The New York Times. One week I'd be in the Arctic Circle watching Eskimos prepare for a whale hunt; the next I'd be drinking beer with a Mexican smuggler.

Now I am another creature altogether. I am a stay- at-home dad.

Allow me an obvious qualification here: It is the patriarch's blessing to watch his baby's eyes slowly transform from black to hazel (the eyebrows come later, in case you don't know). There is the moment when the little beast has figured out how to stand on her own wobbly legs with the help of a chair, or when the first tooth breaks through, or when she mistakenly suckles your nose. These are the good parts. She is 11 months old now and changing fast. I am deeply glad I was there for those things you can never get back once they're gone.

But let's not kid ourselves: A man at home with an infant is out to sea without a compass. Confusion and disorientation set in. How much to feed? How much sleep do they need—and when? The baby doesn't know. You sure as hell don't know. And so the little thing shrieks, flushes crimson, gasps for air. You grow frightened. Fear gives way to weariness. Then, like a heel, you close the door and walk away.