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Best Father's Day Gift: Share His First Photos as a Dad with Shine

Last month we asked Shine's community to share their first photos as a mother. As our scrapbook of the first minutes of motherhood took shape, so did a recurring theme. Dads.

There alongside photos of moms holding babies were the men who helped make it happen. Some in shower caps in the delivery room, edging their faces into the frame as best they could, others holding a toddler beaming with confidence. One mom who shared her own first moments with her child, also posted this photo titled "Mandy and Daddy." Below it she wrote: "Finally after a 54 hour labor, daddy gets to hold his baby girl for the first time."

The experience of becoming a dad is different than it is for moms, and you can see it even in the very first photos. Between Mandy and Daddy, there appears a mutual awe shared only between them. There's a grown man humbled by a tiny person they've been waiting to meet and a tiny person struck by the magnitude of the first man they've ever known. Together, they remind me, even 3 decades on, of my Dad and I. We've just got our own special thing.

In honor of Father's Day and dads' amazing journey we want to see more first moments of fatherhood, whenever and wherever that may be. In the delivery room, at the altar or in the backyard taking the training wheels off, share snapshots of the first moment the man in your life became a dad. Upload your first dad photos to our Flickr pool and include details like, where he was, what he said, and why that photo means so much to you.

Before Father's Day (it's Sunday June 17th by the way!) we'll post a gallery of your submissions on Shine and toast the guys who became heros in a single moment.