Brooklyn-based director Reinaldo Marcus Green is known for making films that touch on social issues—his 2015 narrative Short Stop told the story of a young man profiled by police. Here, the filmmaker talks about his experiences of taking on fatherhood, which he captured for the latest episode of our series Mother Nature:

“While cutting the film, my two-year-old son would crawl onto my lap and watch himself. He would laugh at all the moments that made me laugh and if I tried scrolling through the picture faster, he would whine—he wanted to relive the moments over again. I realized he was doing the editing himself. 

“If I were to try and tell you what life was like before becoming a father, I really wouldn’t know how. It’s as if I lived in a parallel universe, and that part of my life never actually existed, and although I can't remember what that other life was like, I miss it sometimes.

“I miss not feeling like a failure all the time. Somehow becoming a dad was like putting all my flaws under a microscope and magnifying them. I see them everyday and it haunts me. The good news is, I’m working on them, to be the best father I can be for my son and—more importantly—for him to know that I’m going to be there for him, no matter what."