Fatherhood
Resilience
As a parent, I have a ton of things that I want to teach my children. I want to give them the skills and values that I believe will help them grow into healthy, well adjusted members of society. Resilience is one of those skills.
I grew up in a military family, so this was one of the skills that my parents gave to me. Those difficult cross-country moves as a child, and forging new ties in new cities, have made me adept at handling new situations on the fly. The nature of life is change, and being able to handle those changes nimbly without becoming paralyzed by fear is a great life skill to have in your toolset.
There is, however, one area where my resilience is lacking. I’m slavish when it comes to productivity. I have a rough sketch of my day and want things to go exactly according to plan. When I mess up my plan in some small way, I get knocked completely off-track.
I’m a morning person. My goal is to get up at 5am, and be done working out and showering before the kids are up at 7:30am. Most days I’m successful, and a few others, I’m not.
The frustrating thing is that I automatically declare the day a failure if I sleep in until 6:30am or 7:00am. Sure, it’s harder for me to get my workouts in if I miss my designated workout time, but how can the day be a failure when it has only just begun?
Being flexible enough to reorganize my schedule on the fly is something that I need to work on. Oversleeping isn’t great, but it can be managed by rearranging my schedule. I can workout with my kids by going for a walk, or sneaking off to the gym once they’re tucked into bed.
The same can be said about the spiritual life. How many times have you resolved to quit a particular sin, only to fall back into it? Any failure can be managed, and its an opportunity to grow in humility. Instead of continuing to give in to sin simply because the flood walls have been breached, start anew.
Resilience is a crucial life skill to have. Master the art first, and then give it as a gift to your children.
A Father’s Gratitude
The life of a stay-at-home dad isn’t easy. It’s much more difficult than I imagined it would be. My days are in constant motion. I get out of bed at 5 am, because if I don’t have time for myself before 7 am, I won’t see another moment until after 7 pm.
I have two small children, with a third on her way. I know that this schedule that I have cobbled together rests on shifting sands. Development curves and daily emotions threaten the delicate balance. The stability of my former life is a distant memory.
I take opportunities during the day to remove myself from the moment. I see the joy that my children bring to me, and the awesome experience of watching them grow. I know that they won’t be small for long, and soon enough they’ll be less excited to play with me. It makes me appreciate the days we share together.
The best weapon I have in my daily deluge is gratitude. My children bring tremendous good into the world. When I recognize the beauty and value of my children, I can’t help but smile.
Understanding God the Father
I underestimated how impactful parenting would be on my spiritual life. I’ve found that nothing has better helped me to understand the mind of God than helping to shepherd Benedict’s heart. We spend a lot of time in our Church community talking about Jesus, and not as much trying to know God the Father or God the Holy Spirit. Parenting is helping me to cover that lost ground.
Benedict has three hours of quiet time each afternoon. I’d prefer it if he would use the time for napping, and oftentimes he does. When he naps, the evening goes well. Each day is very different. Some days he’ll sleep straight through, others he’ll just run around or have creative play with his stuffed animals. He can be bored during those hours, and when he is, he starts playing with things that aren’t toys. His most recent fixation is the hamper in his room that we use for dirty clothes. He’ll pull the clothes out and put the hamper on his bed. At various times he’s told me that it’s a tunnel, a restaurant, and a TV. I love his creative mind, but not that he’s playing with his dirty clothes.
During my numerous attempts to get Benedict to stop playing with his hamper, I realized that the shoe was on the other foot. How many times has God tried to persuade me to stop doing something and to instead focus on something much better? How many times has my conscience warned me to not do something, only for me to decide against it? I was becoming frustrated that Benedict wasn’t learning, questioning whether my tone was appropriate, and all the while, God must have been smiling.
The shoe being on the other foot can be a humbling experience. Despite my life experience, I’m still failing on the same level as my toddler. Even though I have a vast knowledge of right and wrong, I still choose the wrong too easily. This is the quandary of the Christian life. We reject the knowledge of good and evil that we posses in order to pursue our own agenda, and God relentlessly pursues us.
I’m eager to learn many more spiritual lessons from Benedict and his sister as they grow and mature, and I’m prepared to be humbled by them. Parenting is a great adventure, and while the sacrifice is total, the rewards are innumerable.
The Joy of Two Children
When Felicity arrived this Spring, I had just gotten a handle on how to deal with Benedict. Now a toddler, he’s incredibly bright and interactive. We had a weekly routine organized that consisted of errands, trips to the library, adventures to see family, and even ways he could help around the house. As with all things, the moment that we get comfortable and confident, things change.
One of my greatest delights over the past few years has been getting to watch Benedict grow. Along the way, he’s picked up a number of funny and heartwarming habits. When I ask him to do something, he’ll often respond, “Of course, Daddy! Of course!” I know that in a few years that phrase will completely disappear from his vocabulary, but for now, I’ll relish in it. He doesn’t take time-outs personally. He’ll sit quietly in his chair, head bowed, but as soon as I tell him he may come out, he greets me with a big smile and a hug.
So much of what we believe as a society about children is wrong. We see them as a roadblock and not an opportunity. We see them as a hinderance and not a bonus. These views are so widely held because we are just looking at the situation from the wrong point of view. It’s been my experience that children tend to remind us of the basic goods in life. A sense of discovery and eternal optimism permeates the life of children. They aren’t stressed, they don’t hold on to fear, and they enjoy every moment that they can. Those attributes, if we adopted them as adults, could substantially improve our lives.
Now that I have two children to load into my minivan, I recognize the change that is coming to my life. I’m reminded of the little inconveniences that come with the full time care of a newborn, outweighed, of course, by the full time cuteness. I know that Benedict and I’s daily script, which we worked so hard to create, needs to be thrown out and reworked. I also know that Benedict and I’s opportunity for fun, exploration, and adventure has now significantly expanded that we get to share it with another little person. Benedict is going to be a great big brother, and I hope that his meekness rubs off on Felicity.
Children are a joy, plain and simple. Although they are the original disrupters, what results for the parents is a life better than the one they had planned on their own.
Inadequacies
There are certain experiences that are universal to all parents. Children, regardless of culture and environment, all act in generally the same manner. They are all following the same mental growth curve and have the same milestones. Raking things towards themselves turns into a pincher action. Crawling turns into unstable standing. Babbles turn into words, which turn into sentences. As children follow this invisible curve, parents do as well. We develop strong feelings of protection, strong opinions on proper parenting, and eventual feelings of inadequacies.
Just as we anthropomorphize our pets, we start to place emotions on our children. We assume that they have complex and layered needs that we are incapable of meeting. Oddly, these feelings aren’t dismissed when a temper tantrum is soothed with water or graham cracker. Children largely have only one or two desires in any given moment. They likely include a particular food combined with a particular activity. Simple. It’s we as parents that make things complicated.
Feelings of inadequacy are often just that, feelings. They may be an internal warning that you need to step up your parenting game, but guilt associated with parenting is usually blown out of proportion. So long as you’re meeting your child’s basic needs and introducing them to the world around them, you’re doing enough.
Dwelling on these feelings can affect your parenting. When you start to feel inadequate, here’s my advice. Go into the room where your kids are playing, and play with them. Problem solved.
God, Hell, and Timeouts
One of the areas of parenting that I didn’t anticipate being uncomfortable with is timeouts. I wouldn’t say that Benedict has a case of the terrible twos, but I would say that he is still learning how to process his emotions. He’s a very easy going little guy whose bad moods can generally be managed by a simple change of scenery. Otherwise, he’s a joy to be with and lots of fun. Yet, like any toddler, his actions merit a timeout a few times per day.
I don’t like the feeling of putting him in timeout. Intellectually, I get it. I need to help him learn the right behavior today so that he can have a happy, disciplined life. Emotionally, it’s extremely difficult. It’s difficult because I see only the good in him, and so when he does something that’s bad and I have to discipline him, it makes me feel sad. These emotions can be most vividly described at a recent Sunday in the back of Church.
Benedict likes to run around, and so when we corral him in the pew, he can get a bit antsy. He needed a break, so I took him into the back of Church to discuss why his behavior was unacceptable. As I gently spoke to him in the back of Church, he got even more frustrated that he couldn’t walk and began to flail his arms. I found a corner, put him in timeout, and stood with my back to him so that he couldn’t get out. A great thing about Benedict is that he generally knows his guilt and, when put in timeout, won’t attempt to flee. I looked down on him a couple of times only to find him looking hopefully back up at me. His expression was sheepish and it was a look of both an apology and of request for mercy. In that moment, I got another glimpse into the mind of God.
So much about parenting is a reflection of our relationship with God. He’s created us, we are His children. He has such great expectations of us and, like the father in me, only can see the best in me. So when I make a mistake, what we call sin, He knows that He has to put me in timeout. Yet, it’s not Him doing it, it’s my actions that necessitate the discipline. During those times when we’re in timeout, all He wants to do is pick us back up and bring us back into the fold. We call that Confession. If we refuse to turn back to Him, and are eternally separated from Him, that is like the modern tragedy of so many families, permanently estranged.
Many people delay or avoid transitioning into the role of parent for many reasons, but I’ve found nothing to be more beneficial to my spiritual life than being a father. By recognizing my relationship with God in my relationship with Benedict, I can better understand my relationship with God and how my actions truly affect Him. Parenting is a great vocation and, like the priesthood or religious life, is a mirror of the Divine.
Dad Life
Lately I’ve developed a bit of an addiction to car care. I want our cars to last, so I try to wash them weekly and keep them clean. I’ve always been on the meticulous side when it comes to the cleanliness of our cars, but these days I’ve also taken an interest in making improvements. I’ve upgraded the rearview mirror, the interior lights, and the radio on the van in recent weeks. While working on these projects, it occurred to me that I’m now the dad and these are the things that I do. Several times I’ve been in a bind while making a repair, but with no one to back me up, I just had to troubleshoot my way through the problem and make it work. During these times, I realized that it’s actually fun to be the dad.
There are plenty of things that dads do. We take care of the cars, manicure the lawn, spray for bugs, and make other repairs around the house. I have a growing tool box, work shorts, a work shirt, a work hat, and soon will have work gloves. I now complete the picture of a dad doing chores around the house. I notice what needs attention, I make a list, and in rapid succession I check off the items on that list.
While I still find it hard to believe that I’m actually the dad now, I find this life very satisfying. Caring for our home and property is a way that I can show my love for my family. A good looking car and a good looking lawn sends a positive message to the world and my family gets to be a part of that message. A clean home gives us space to move and the opportunity to not feel trapped in our own home. With everything in working order, we can go about our days without being impeded by dysfunction.
There are innumerable ways that we can show our love to our family. Yet, few ways are more impactful than for children to see dad on a weekend in his “work clothes,” hustling around the house making repairs, improvements, and maintaining the house that we all call home.
Hopeful Anticipation
I’m experiencing a noticeable difference between Alison’s first pregnancy and her second: I’m a lot more cool and controlled. With less than two months until the arrival of our daughter, we’re only now starting to make preparations. It’s not that we’re disinterested, just that there’s less mystery. Less mystery requires less planning. We have almost everything already, now all that we need are the little essentials.
While the pragmatic side of me is calm and collected, the dad side of me is really excited. We bought her a wardrobe, converted the nursery into the “kids room,” and put some fresh decorations on her side of the room. There are tulip stickers growing out of her crib, and splashes of pink everywhere. It seems like there’s a lot more “fun” stuff for girls, but that’s a different post. We’re daily introducing the concept of a little sister to Benedict and while he can’t fully grasp it until she arrives, I think he understands. He helps Alison get up when it’s time for bed, he gives his sister kisses, hugs, and blessings, and he can mutter a syllable or two of her name.
I’d call my feelings hopeful anticipation. With less than 60 days, her imminent arrival is a daily topic of conversation and activity. I even just washed her first sets of clothes and will be putting them into her wardrobe. It’s appropriate that her birth come in late Spring because it makes the Easter season that much more real. I feel what the Apostles felt. I feel that steady pull of excitement and anticipation.
While on a walk the other day, I saw another young family playing with their small child on the park. I realized that my peers don’t grasp what it means to be a parent. To many (most?) of them, it’s a burden, a bore, or a limiting factor on their lives. Nothing could be further from the truth. Nothing is more freeing, more exciting, or opens up more possibilities than a child.
I’m excited for my little girl to arrive, but I’m even more excited to watch another life blossom before my eyes.
Be Silly
Benedict’s favorite part of the work week happens on Thursday mornings at our library. He absolutely loves story time. Even though we’ve only been going for a few months, he knows when we’re driving to the library and he always charges into the story room. It’s a great time for us to be out and about, for him to interact with other little people, and for him to learn from someone other than me.
As you’ve probably guessed by now, I’m usually the only dude there. I do have another dad friend who’s wife is in the same program as Alison, but they’ll be moving this summer and soon it’ll be just me. I’ll admit that the whole story time situation is a bit awkward, at least it seems like it is for the moms.
The most awkward part is when we sing. The moms are into it, and frankly, so am I. Yet, for some reason, I just feel these waves of judgement coming my way. It’s as if singing is for moms and not for dads. We’re a changing economy and more dads are staying home to tend the children. In my biased opinion, if a family is able to work out that situation, it doesn’t really matter who stays home. Benedict loves to sing and I know that he takes the majority of his cues from me, so if I’m not singing, he may get the impression that he shouldn’t sing either. That’s no way to live!
All of this comes back to the subject of what makes a “good dad.” So many adults are sadly estranged from their fathers and I think that, in part, it’s because too many men have the wrong idea of who a father is. It’s not manly to be standoffish and cold. That’s called being a jerk. Imagine if God, as our father, acted in that way! No, He’s warm, active, and involved. We should be too. We need to give ourselves permission to be silly, because that’s what our children long for. A good dad is someone who’s not only present, but willing to ignore societal norms for the sake of his children.
We spend too much of our time subconsciously trying to stay within the lines. It’s time that we break the mold, color outside of the lines, and be the dads we ought to be.
Being A True Servant Leader
Servant leadership is a term that’s quite popular in management circles. It attempts to form leaders who care less about the power and more about using the influence to lift up their team members. Servant leadership turns the traditional model of leadership on its head by using its forces for good, instead of allowing itself to become open to corruption. While it may be atypical to find servant leaders in the workforce, once place that makes it easy to find these great leaders is in the home.
Reflecting more deeply on the life of a parent, I’m reminded of the great model of servant leadership that parenthood offers us. Extreme levels of sacrifice, a significant downgrade of personal priorities, and total commitment to the cause are all attributes of great leaders, but they’re also reflective of great parents. Parents forget about their wants and needs in order to care for their children. Parents are true servant leaders.
Too often we build walls between our work and our home life. Rightly so, these barriers are constructed to protect our family from the work creep that comes into family time via our phones and computers. I recently challenged you to not divorce your faith and work life and today I want to take that challenge one step further. None of us are perfect parents, but the lessons we learn in parenting can be applied in other areas of our lives to the benefit of all.
Take, for example, if you applied the same levels of sacrifice you make for your kids in your marriage. What if you answered every one of your wife’s requests, stopped what you were doing to listen to her, and do whatever she wanted? What if she did the same?
What if you took the lessons of parenthood and applied them at work? What if your set aside your own objectives and desires for the sake of the team, if you went out of your way to coach a colleague, and only offered constructive criticism?
Parenting is the ultimate vehicle for adult growth because it calls us back to our core values. Parenting demands respect, gentleness, and humanity. Parenting requires all of those great values that we wish we had in a leader. If we were to take its lessons and apply them in other areas of our lives, I bet people would start to take notice and maybe, just maybe, the benefits of being noticed might take you to a place that you want to be.