Fatherhood
6,750
Parenting young children is exhausting, and although I know my aunt is being truthful when she wholeheartedly recommends retirement to me, I’m able to recognize that every season has its challenges and its rewards.
I have 18 years to build a relationship with my children that will need to last us a lifetime. It’s a unique one, as I journey with them from total dependence to total independence. They reach milestones and forget to mention it to me. I’m approaching them assuming yesterday’s dependence while they’re trying to flex today’s independence.
It’s easy to get bogged down in the daily repetition, but when I take the view that I have 6,570 days to build our relationship, and tomorrow it’ll be 6,569, perspective shifts my decisions. Grace becomes easier, new adventure becomes more alluring, connection becomes more important than rest.
Unraveled
For the entire existence of humanity, there has been a singular experience that unites us. No matter the time, geolocation, cultural surroundings or economic environment, human reproduction was universally recognized as an essential good. The gradual transition from child to adult to parent was a natural progression that was something to be celebrated. Not only did it denote a degree of maturity, but was also a sign of growing wisdom. The student truly becoming the master.
Parenthood is not experienced by all adults for many reasons that are valid. There are those who biologically do not have the faculties to naturally conceive or bear a child. There are also those called to the single state to serve the community in specialized ways.
Where things start to unravel is when the natural desire to parent a child is suppressed by selfishness. This can be either through immoral end runs around biological shortcomings or, a conscious decision to intentionally avoid parenthood.
Social media trends flaunt the dual-income no-kids trend, where two married people decide not to welcome the gift and responsibility of a child so that they can live as they choose. They shower themselves in luxury, fill their homes with pets, and delude themselves into thinking this is somehow a life worthy of living.
While deeply sad, the unraveling of this universal human experience represents a core sickness in society. It’s the acceptance of the idea that a child’s life, their existence, presents an obstacle to happiness or fulfillment. This is dangerous.
Parenting is a difficult task, requiring daily concentration, focus, and dedication. As a child grows, they frequently act in a way that goes against their own best interests. Parents must lovingly, firmly, and consistently offer correction so that, by the time the child reaches adulthood, they have the tools and boundaries to thrive independently.
The responsibility for a child is the most essential loving gift that we can gift. No matter how imperfectly given, it’s also the gift that we ourselves have already received. May we endeavor to rise above ourselves, setting aside our needs for the needs of those entrusted to us.
Fatherless
A decade ago, at the height of the third-party mobile app ecosystem, I was trying tons of shiny new apps. One was a greeting card generator, that you could design in the app, and which would be printed and mailed to the recipient. It was fine, but I quickly moved on. I hadn’t given that app much thought until three weeks ago. They emailed me, letting me know that Father’s Day was around the corner, and that know that it could be a painful day for many. They wanted to give me the opportunity to opt-out from their Father’s Day marketing emails.
While Mother’s Day is all flowers, breakfast in bed, and late morning brunches, we’ve turned Father’s Day into a dour affair. In a way, it aligns perfectly with our collective attitudes and communication. For years now, the tides against men and fatherhood have risen to tsunami levels, unmooring men from the society expectations that, for millennia, held the basic building block of society, the family, together.
Undoubtedly, many men have abdicated their roles. We’ve lowered the bar so far on our expectations for men that their household responsibilities start and end with a regular income stream. Without the challenge that men instinctually crave, they become soft, lazy, and remote. They drift away, easily succumbing to base temptation.
It may be a convenient story to tell ourselves that fathers aren’t really necessary, but that’s not what the data shows. Single mother households are at an exponential risk of poverty. Children who come from homes without their father present are at a demonstrable disadvantage. Families without a father are like a plant that gets abundant sunshine, but no water; slowly, they wither.
There’s great wisdom in the fact that men share the title “father” with God. To be a father requires great sacrifice and heroic virtue. Sharing life with another person is a beautiful thing, but taking on the responsibility for another is something else. A father blazes a trail for his son to follow; he’s the first love of his daughter. He is not just a number on a bank statement, but an omnipresent force for good in the home.
Fatherlessness is the great scourge of our day, the predictable outcome of decades of anti-men rhetoric and attitudes. Instead of minimizing their importance, or treating them like feckless children, we should celebrate fathers who have laid down their lives in humble service of their families.
Empty
Halfway through my kids’ summer vacation, and I’ve hammered through my to-do list. Projects, tasks, and ideas from late 2022 are finally percolating to the top, and getting done. I’m eating great, working out, and watching movies in broad daylight. My schedule is my own, I am the Master & Commander of my schedule. My house is empty, and although I appear to be doing all the things that I desire, I, too, am empty.
It’s not a mistake for a father to share a piece of his identity with his family. My sense of emptiness comes not out of a dark place, but out of a place of truth. In a world where children are seen as an accessory, I sense my children’s essential nature.
There are plenty of stressors throughout my day, starting from basic safety and ratcheting all the way up to petty sibling rivalries and fake crying. But those moments of the day are incidental. They are part of what happens to a father, they are not what it is to be a father.
As the days tick down until I bring everyone home, and we settle back into the chaos and rigor of life, my mind drifts to their college and adult days. They will not always be this small, not always this willing to overlook my faults and failings. What kind of people do I want them to become? That is my work for today.
Quiet
Summer vacation is finally here, and the kids are off with their grandparents for two weeks. Alison and I drove home yesterday and, for the first time in nearly three years, are home alone.
Although we slept in this morning, and were slow to start our day, we were unbelievably productive before lunch. I made it through my whole list for the day, and the house feels clean and refreshed.
Life with small children is never easy, but it’s always full of great meaning and beauty. I’ll enjoy the quiet time ahead, focusing on what needs to be done. But I’ll look forward to when my children return, and things are less quiet.
Checkpoints
The cold days of winter are behind us as the days grow warmer and spring fills all of us with a sense of newness. As we near the end of the school year, in the midst of this newness, my thoughts are turning back to my family’s daily rhythm.
At the beginning of the school year, we were very dedicated to our routine. Although it was familiar each day, we checked things off our list in the same order each morning. Among those routines were clear opening and closings for our school day. As the year dragged on, and the workload increased, those routines faded away.
I’ve built a new routine, to carry us through the upcoming months, and I’ve designed it towards a rhythm of prayer. Not a burdensome schedule, but a monastic one adapted for our domestic life. I want to have checkpoints sprinkled throughout our day, with short opportunities for prayer. In a way, it’s like water stations along a race route. I never wanted us to be too far from prayer.
Real life is very normal, routine, and frankly boring. The same is true for the lives of the saints, including St. Joseph. He was an anonymous tradesman in a village of 200 people. But out of that ordinariness, something beautiful bloomed. I hope that our rhythm of prayer does the same for us.
Ten
Ten years ago, I launched this blog. With a plan, and a few months worth of work, I wrote and prepared articles for publication. They were simple, short, and to the point. I wrote about the lessons that I’d experienced, the things I was thinking about, and the experiences that I had.
In the years that followed, I went from a father of one child to now having four. I wrote three books, started homeschooling, moved three times, and even launched my own business. My publishing schedule has slowed since those early days as my life has filled up, but a decade later, I’m still here.
Now just over 900 posts, I marvel at how the themes woven into these blogs reoccur. Each week brings a new lesson, or a new spin on an old lesson. Many lessons I’m still relearning and likely will need to relearn several more times.
This body of work represents something intimate; it’s the place where my deepest thoughts come to the fore. This is a nice place for me to be and to write, and I hope that in another decade, I’ll share a similar reflection in a post titled, “Twenty.”
Calm
For nearly fourteen hours each day, my life is filled with abundant sound and light. Some of it is at my direction, much of it is outside of my control. Like my father before me, I try to bend the sound by playing calm music in the background, though not always to great effect.
One of my favorite things to do in the early morning or late at night is to sit in the stillness of the dark living room. I feel as if I can fully relax.
It’s not enough for me to set aside those precious minutes at the bookends of my day. I need to find calm in the chaos throughout the day. I need to process the cacophony of my household not as a noisy abyss, but as a symphony of joy. These are the sounds of life, of joy, and of youth.
Every parent experiences the stress and overwhelm of children. The secret is to change how you relate to those pressing moments. Are they my breaking point, or a perfect time for a break?
All on the Field
I have 60–90 minutes each evening between when the children are finally in bed and when it’s time for me to go to sleep. I find myself incredibly pensive during this time, and often seeking to maximize the conclusion to my day. Frequently, I feel too tired to do anything and opt to go to bed early.
I’ve written about the nature of rest, and how sometimes being active and productive gives us a deeper sense of rest and peace than idleness. This is true, but I want to order my days so that when it’s time for me to finally go to bed, I have a sense that I left it all on the field.
Athletes use this phrase to describe giving everything that they have in a game. Win, lose, or draw, they didn’t hold any of their talent or ability back. They poured themselves into the game and did all that they could to achieve victory. That’s how I want to live.
It’s easy to become tired from the tedium of my day. The many tasks which must be accomplished, though easier left undone, the sameness of my weekdays. It’s easy to leave much on the field and to give myself the day off.
The truth is, if I leave everything on the field, all things will be done well. It means I’ve woken up early and taken the time that I need to train my body and prepare myself for the day. It means my family has eaten, learned, prayed, and played together. It means my home is picked up, the kitchen is clean, and the laundry is put away.
It takes hard work to stay on top of everything. But the reward is going to bed knowing that I left it all on the field. Tomorrow I have the privilege of a whole new day to do it all over again.
Letting Go of Efficiency
It’s a Friday morning and time to run errands in the big city. Before we leave the house, I cycle through the various routes, selecting the most efficient option. Our departure time is calculated carefully, accounting for bathroom breaks, finding shoes, and getting out the door. Along the way, seconds are shaved off our travel time as I select the best lane, optimal cruise speed, and maneuver around slower traffic.
This is how my mind works, always working for optimization. I plan, recompute, and adjust my day to get things done in the best way possible. It just happens. For most things, that’s fine. We safely and efficiently move through our errands, check tasks off of my list, and get more stuff done.
In parenting, efficiency isn’t always the right choice.
I can clean the kitchen, wash the cars, and reorganize my closet with speed and precision on my own, but should I? Shouldn’t I let my two-year old pull dishes out of the clean dishwasher, one at a time, at random, instead of insisting on pulling out entire category groups? She’s so gleeful to help.
I can go to the office and knock out an hour’s worth of work in 45 minutes, but shouldn’t I take my son along with me to check out an airplane and play with his LEGOs while I work? He’ll ask questions, share his thoughts, and slow me down. It’s not efficient, but is it better?
I can wash a car in 90 minutes, getting it to showroom perfection, but shouldn’t I let my daughter pick up the hose and go a little crazy? Shouldn’t I hand her the wash mitt and let her take some of the dirt off of the car, too?
We all remember that point in time when we realized that our parents were their own people. They have their own thoughts, needs, hopes, and dreams. As children, our minds weren’t able to comprehend that others have the same desires that we have. Now on the other side of that equation, I can see into my children’s minds, but they cannot yet see into mine.
I’m a very efficient person, but when it comes to each day and each task, it’s okay if I invite my children into my world, and I perform at a level just a few notches below peak.