There's pressure on working fathers like never before. You have seen it - carpooling, grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning and giving those kids time - the ramifications of having 75% of mothers of school-age children out in the workforce, slogging it out full time. And while there is a general public sympathy towards working mothers, almost nothing is said, discussed, or considered about the husbands of these women. How are we affected?
Much of the impact is favorable for our (and our children's) future because we are more likely to be emotionally available to our children than our fathers were to us. This is just a time-spent-with-junior phenomenon; you know your child (or anyone else for that matter) the more time you spend with them. Even if that time is across the hot tub, or driving home from the baseball game, you develop a more intimate understanding of a personality that you experience regularly.
Some of the impact is not so favorable. You get a raised eyebrow from the boss (or a client, in my case) when you have to leave a meeting early to drive your kids somewhere. Or you're running late because the trip to the kid's orthodontist ran late. They're just not used to men having to think about balancing work life and home life.
The strides made by women in the workplace has been the cultural revolution of our generation. It has created a number of ancillary problems, however. Things like balance. These are problems of working mothers only, right? Wrong. There is another parent often involved in that working mother's family, and that parent is usually known as just 'a father,' not 'a working father.' This is because it is expected that fathers would be working, and only the alternative would need an adjective: the 'stay-at-home' father, who is saddled with ignominious title, "Mr. Mom." We assume Dad is working.
You would expect someone like me, who is interested in being the perfect husband, to be interested in being the perfect father. And you would be correct. Type A personalities want to be better at everything - including being better at relaxing and enjoying life than Type B personalities, which of course is impossible. But here goes my effort at being the perfect father:
1. Say 'I love you." Not all the time, of course, but you do need to say it often enough to embarrass your kids with it, like shouting it out the window after dropping them off with a gaggle of their friends.
2. Listen. Parents in general are rotten listeners. We're too busy telling them not to throw sharp objects at their smaller siblings, run a comb through their bozo-the-clown hair before going to church, or not to open the car door while we're driving. Every now and then you have to be ready for an intelligent sentence from your teenage daughter's mouth (or an unintelligible grunt from your teenage son's mouth). When this occurs, before informing the media, consider saying nothing - I know, hard. If you have to say anything, repeat a few words of what they said, no matter how insipid. "yeah, its amazing, boys really are stupid."
3. Laugh often. This can be hard sometimes, but if you find any of the things that make them laugh even remotely funny, you need to share a laugh with them. Spongebob comes to mind. I can't explain why Spongebob is funny, any more than I can explain why my club-head misses the ball 10% of the time. But both are deserving of a good laugh, and laughter is meant to be shared.
4. Offer to take them wherever you go. This will do several things: it will keep you honest; and they may actually take you up on it. After ten years of asking my 16 year-old daughter if she wanted to join me on a bike ride, all met with repeated "No's," she said "yes" last Wednesday. I concealed my temporary state of shock, and we had a lovely albeit short ride to the casting pond, where we picked wildflowers (they were weeds, Park Ranger friends) and made her Mom a little bouquet as a thank you gift for driving her somewhere over lunch. It never would have happened if I assumed that past performance was indicative of the future. Which leads me to point number
5. Be ready for change. Let them try on different personalities. Call it "reinventing themselves" not "trying on another personality." Yup, made that mistake. Adolescents often don't like the brat they became. They're looking to save face and a way out. Smart comments from Dad about the exorcism of their witch-devil undermine their efforts to be nice. Resist the temptation to be clever. Save your own cynicism for the Investment Club meeting.
6. Contact, contact contact. Nobody will think you are a child molester if you hug your kids. Get over whatever physical intimacy issue you may bring to the equation - they don't have those issues naturally, and you will only teach them bad habits if you make it wrong to touch them and vice versa. People have two arms and two hands. We were meant to hold each other, physically and emotionally. Do both.
7. Balance. Balance is a two-way street. Its not just about taking time off work to visit the orthodontist. Its also about showing them how to be responsible in carrying out your career. Let's face it: most work is hard, stressful, and often requires you to work a late evening or weekend. Let them see your place of work and what you do. They will understand it when you have to miss a game for a big project if they can visualize where you are going. At the same time, if you begin to miss every other game, and then several games in a row, you need to consider that balance issue again.
8. Show your grief. I read a summary of a study some time ago that found a correlation between people's emotional health and whether they witnessed their father expressing emotions, and - oddly - grief in particular. It makes me sad that the world lost Tim Russert this week. Especially after reading his 'Fathers' book. Its OK to let your kids know you are sad we lost Tim Russert this week.
9. Brag about your kids in front of them. This can be a tricky one, because you risk them thinking its OK to brag about themselves, and they can sound conceited and self-absorbed. But when they hear (or better yet, overhear) you talking proudly about the Team Spirit Award they (Ellen) got, or their 60 mile-an-hour fastball they (Nate) threw, they will beam about it, and they will know you celebrate their accomplishments along side them.
10. Don't worry about looking like a Woos. I think many fathers make the mistake of trying to live up to the Donna Reed, Ward Cleaver vision of what Dads are supposed to be like. Those guys didn't really exist then and God knows they sure don't exist now. Showing your kids you can simmer a mean pasta sauce is not a sign of weakness - so wear that apron proudly, and sweep that floor like your life depends on it. This is no time to get caught up in roles. You don't know what they will remember most, but you want to make sure they remember a man who was stable in all his myriad roles and didn't give a darn what the guys at the Club (or bar) might think if they dropped by for a seltzer. Be who you are, and forget about what some other guys might think.
Comments