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Father’s Day approaches, as does the barrage of television and radio commercials that will broadcast compelling images and insights about “everything Dad” in tidy little snippets of imaginary Americana lore. Our wives and families will be enticed by a litany of products from hardware stores, clothing stores, and specialty stores, which will ultimately help decide what’s in store for us when we awake on Father’s Day morning. Will it be a new tool belt for one’s workbench or a new dress belt for one’s khakis?
Please… let it be anything besides even a subtle reminder that khakis exist.
As our families watch the fake dads on these commercials, so will we, even if only from our periphery. And let’s be honest, most TV dads don’t look anything like “real” dads—they look more like extras on the set of the movie 300. I wish I could say that I lost my six pack a long time ago, but it would be more accurate to say that I lost even the faintest hope for a six pack long before reaching the midpoint of adolescence, probably somewhere between the infamous purchase of my bright purple M.C. Hammer parachute pants and the slow growth of my ill-advised, mustache-free goatee.
My point is, most “real” dads don’t look, sound, stand as tall, make as much money, or quite honestly, seem as good at fatherhood as those chiseled masculine models on the Fathers’ Day commercials who laugh with carefree jocularity as they wrestle with their delightfully perfect offspring without nary a solitary hair (all of which they still have, by the way) going astray.
The truth is, I spent more than fifteen years of my life with kids as either a public school teacher or within youth mentoring roles in student and young adult ministry—only to find out that when my own offspring finally “offsprung” (my wife describes the process a little differently), I wasn’t nearly as prepared as I thought I would have been. I went from being a “cool” adult to whom thousands of kids would gleefully flock with their most trusted issues to a dad who has trouble sustaining more than a two-minute focused conversation with my own amazing kid who hasn’t gotten the memo that I used to be “cool.”
I feel like I have so much to offer her. When it comes to sound bites of wisdom, I’m like Yoda… well, minus anyone who actually wants to listen to him, which honestly just makes me a pretty weird little green guy with a charming case of cosmic dyslexia. Many days as a dad are filled with adventure and all seems right with the world. But on many other days, I feel downright lost and disoriented… like one of those Fathers’ Day TV models must feel when their favorite tanning salon closes for a holiday.
So if you’re a “real” dad like me, let me lighten your load with a couple of ideas—things I’m really trying to learn these days.
1. Avoid Becoming a Self-Proclaimed Simpleton
Remember when you were a little kid and you used to mess around by crossing your eyes? Inevitably, some adult in your life—probably your mom—eventually said these words to you: “You better not do that or you’ll get stuck that way!” I’m not sure if they were right, but the thought of walking around having saddled yourself with such a predicament simply for the entertainment value of a few seconds with your friends probably deterred you from continuing with the aforementioned eye-crossing.
The same lesson has a tragic application to manhood and fatherhood. Being a husband and/or a dad is hard work—as I said, the game you may have thought you knew how to play and win is constantly changing. Take it from a guy who is lucky to spell the word “fotherhoud” correctly, no one is an expert, which means we must all be open to continual learning. But I have met many guys over the years who seem to settle into a state of self-proclaimed simplicity, leaving the real heavy lifting of parenting to the professionals or to members of the fairer sex living in their own homes.
“You’re feeling disillusioned about what? Your identity? Whew, that sounds pretty heavy, son… and those are some big words you’re using too! Whew, that kind of stuff is over my head. Maybe you should go talk to your mom, or maybe your guidance counselor. But if you ever need a fishin’ buddy, you know who to call!” (noogies follow)
Please, be a fishing buddy and do your due diligence with the noogies, but don’t stop there. Of course, fatherhood is going to throw things at us that we don’t know how to handle, but that doesn’t mean we should just meander our way to the recliner and feign ignorance. (I think the person who does this is actually known as a “meanderthal,” but I digress.)
If you don’t know what to do as a husband or father—which you often won’t—don’t just send your kid to someone else… go with your kid to someone else so you can both keep learning and facing the challenges together. Making peace with the fact that you’re not going to master parenthood might just give you the courage to keep jumping into the fray where your family needs you most, not as a savior or as Mr. Fix-It, but also not as unengaged as a catcher in tee ball.
You see, guys who keep proclaiming themselves too simple to face complicated matters sometimes end up like the cautionary tale every mom warns their temporarily cross-eyed kids about: you get stuck that way.
2. Be Man Enough To Say “Sorry”
When I was in graduate school learning about the best practices for teaching students in classrooms, I was bombarded with statistics about group-based, circle time. Researchers were adamant that students learn much better not in the straight rows of most of our childhood school experiences, but rather in smaller groups where discussion and the sharing of ideas can flourish. If I heard it once during those years, I bet I heard it a hundred times.
The only thing was, during most of the time I was hearing about the merits of circle-based classrooms, guess in what position most of our college classrooms were arranged… yep, rows. They were telling us that circles were the best for learning, but they were not telling us this in circles, so how do you think most of those young teachers ordered their future classrooms?
Probably less in the way they were told and more in the way they were shown.
As a dad, there is this innate—and sometimes incredibly strong—pressure to maintain order and authority in our homes. I get it. These are absolutely critical and should be prioritized. But one of the things many dads demand the most of their children is something that their children never actually witness them doing themselves: apologizing.
I’m not suggesting that we stop being in charge, stop demanding respect, or do anything else that would be equivalent of texting nuclear launch codes to a ten-year-old. I’m merely saying that there can be blind spots to the most obvious of contradictions, such as screaming at your kid, “We don’t scream in this house!” while you’re this house.
“Uh, Dad? It would appear that we do.”
As we have already established, “real” dads don’t have to pretend that they know it all, which means that they also don’t have to act as if every move they make as a dad is beyond reproach. You and I both know better—we blow it all the time. But when you do, resist the urge to skip over the eating of crow that you would demand from your child if the roles were reversed. You’re not establishing authority… you’re establishing cognitive dissonance by requiring something of them that you yourself do not actually do.
Obviously, there are reasonable boundaries to what I’m saying, so I urge you not to drive this concept off the “Cliffs of What Ifs “(which I hear are lovely this time of year.) The bottom line is that looking your little ones in the eyes and saying, “You know, I should have made a better decision with my reaction. You are still in trouble for what you did, but Daddy is sorry for speaking too harshly… will you forgive me?” will actually model for your kids the very things you want the most out of them.
Models—hmm, that’s where we started, isn’t it? You may not be in a Fathers’ Day commercial, but you certainly already are a model to your kids. Wearing a sense of work ethic in your fatherhood—along with a healthy dose of humility and gentleness in your dealings with your youngins—will show them something much better than just another pair of new khakis that—let’s be honest—you’re never going to wear anyway.
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