‘When you become a dad ... you have to say goodbye to an old part of yourself’Shane O’ConnorShane O'Connor, founder of the Lads2dads group, with his sons Bodhi and Sonny. Photograph: Daragh Mc Sweeney/Provision Thirty-four-year-old Shane O’Connor was only four months into a new relationship with his now fiancee Hazel when he learned he was to become a father. He’d always hoped to be a dad one day, but that “didn’t make it any easier in terms of us being a brand new couple”, he says.“Hazel and I were pretty certain we had found the person that we wanted to do life with,” he adds, but the news was still a shock. O’Connor had only recently moved back to Ireland having lived abroad for almost a decade, which compounded the sense of whiplash. “We went from a honeymoon period to ‘oh wow we still don’t know each other, but we’re about to have a child’. There was a lot of emotions in play at once,” he says.[ The ‘identity earthquake’: The biological and psychological impact of fatherhood on menOpens in new window ]“When Bodhi, our son, was born, I was like a deer in headlights. I was rattled. I barely remember the first few months of Bodhi’s life because I was so overwhelmed and so in shock with his arrival.”In spite of the initial sense of being overwhelmed and the adjustment to being a parent, the dad of two feels fatherhood has changed him for the better. “It has definitely made me a better partner, without a shadow of a doubt,” he says. Beforehand, “I was definitely a little bit selfish. I was very much on Shane’s watch, ‘what does Shane want to do’. I was young, 25-year-old Shane who used to live in Berlin and travel loads, with no responsibilities and that freedom to do what I wanted and not have to ask anyone permission.“When you become a dad ... you do have to say goodbye to an old part of yourself, and [that] took time. I grieved over my 20s... that definitely was a part I’ve struggled to shake off,” he says.It was his own experience of transitioning to fatherhood that led O’Connor to set up a support group for fathers in Cork. “If I was feeling this way, in a state of shock and not feeling fully prepared, and not having an outlet to talk to other dads about ‘hey, this is f**king tough work’,” then, he figured, other men must feel that way too.He says Lads2dads provides a space where “dads can come together ... where they can ask questions. They can learn from one another. They can bring up whatever they want to bring up, whether that be something that’s challenging them from a relationship point of view with their partner, or something they’re struggling with their kids. Anger, emotions, you name it.”Shane O'Connor at a Lads2dads meeting in Cork city. Photograph: Daragh Mc Sweeney/Provision