Dad Post #229

In an interesting article recently, I read: “It seems like a lot of what you end up doing as a parent is trying to figure out ways to save your children from you.” This resonated with me. Is it because I’m a crappy parent? Maybe, but mostly it inspired thoughts about how previous generations didn’t even go there; our grandfathers didn’t turn the focus on themselves. They weren't uncaring or ignorant. Far from it. They simply had a different playbook, culturally and socially. The consciousness and science of the era were different, also. Life was different. And so parenting was different. Not better or worse, just conducted with other things in mind. We likely fell a little short back then, but we fail in other ways now. Having awareness of un-optimal genes and environments we throw at our kids is probably good. Bowing to their every whim and analyzing behavioral minutia is probably not good. I find that life is a lot about happy mediums. Parenting is not a democracy, but, conversely, 'the preacher's kid' is a stereotype for a reason; authoritarian parenting sucks the warmth out of folks. Kindness is important to me, and now I'm not talking about being a parent, but a human being.

There are three things I insist are abundant at home: books, sports gear, and writing utensils. Regarding the third, we have more pens, markers, highlighters, BICs, Sharpies, and rollerballs than an Office Depot. We have wooden, mechanical, and colored pencils. We have scratch & sniff pencils. We have crayons, pastels, watercolors, and chalk, if that’s your thing. We have swarms of writing instruments in every room. It's a ubiquity like an infestation, and yet when asked to do homework, I've heard young voices tell me they have nothing to write with.

Actually, M ‘n’ m knock out homework pretty quickly. It’s other to-dos they neglect, like cleaning up the mildew experiments they seemingly undertake by piling wet towels over dirty clothes after a shower.

I read that Robert Downey Jr.’s son is “still in blissful early life, with no idea that his father is unlike other men.” And yet I thought, every father is unlike other men (to his children). Semantics, I suppose, and most of us aren’t Ironman or Sherlock Holmes, but every dad – potentially – possesses a uniqueness, value, and celebrity in the eyes of his children. We need to actuate this influence, though. Maybe it’s a power more subtle than the laser- and pulse-beams Iron Man blows things up with, but it’s a very considerable and lasting thing, our fatherly impact and reach. We need to be positive and constructive with it; we need to honor and earn it; we need to rise to meet it with the best and brightest versions of ourselves. Amen.