Anonymous Dads: You Don’t Always Get to Pick When You Parent

Editors Note: TNV Moms is happy to announce a new series of articles and writers to our website known as “Anonymous Dads.”  TNV Moms has invited Dads across the valley to join us, either openly or anonymously, and write about their perspectives on parenting.

 

Our first article is from a great local blogger, writer, and new TNV Moms contributor Bo Williams of BoWilliams.com.   Take it away Bo!

 

 

You Don’t Always Get to Pick When You Parent

I’m a man.  We’re not complicated.  There are stereotypes about steak, football, cars, guns, and any number of other things that became stereotypes for good reason.

One that is just as strong, but not as often named, is a man’s affection for having an audience.  We really dig being listened to.  If we’re at all prone to puff out our chests and get “that” tone in our voice, it’s going to be in the presence of people paying sustained attention to what we have to say.

Sometimes, I’m Dad in such a mode.  One of our boys will ask me a question in the car, or at a restaurant, or in another captive place, and I’ll feel myself sliding into it.  “You see, kids…” I’ll begin, maybe with a little too much Clark W. Griswold about me for comfort.

Now I don’t totally ham it.  True, Nathan and Aaron are as close to enraptured as they ever get, and there are also chances for Lea to jump in and agree with me.  (Men are into that too.)  I detect myself enjoying it, but I’m also aware that it’s particularly rich father time.  It’s an opportunity to get important things across.  Human relations and the value of work have been recent topics.  I like it when one of the boys comes back to me later and talks about something I’ve said in such a situation.

It would certainly be convenient if this thing called “parenting” were always so compartmentalized.  Alas, it isn’t.  Our children watch and listen to a degree adults can no longer fathom.  Yes, it’s my influence when I say to my son “Where does money come from?” and he immediately replies “Work!”  But, it was also my influence when he was three years old and couldn’t get two of his Duplo bricks apart, so he threw them at the rug with a hearty and expressive expletive.

Oops.  (Wow.  I had no idea how much I swore around the house until I tried to stop.)

The role of a continuous model is a daunting one, both in its scope and its immutability.  Every time I interact with my children’s mother, I’m teaching them how to treat a wife, and she’s teaching them how a wife treats a husband.  That’s a major component of life, and a key factor of long-term fulfillment.  Gee, that better be good, don’t you think?

My boys, like any children, occasionally misbehave.  Every time I interact with them as a disciplinarian, I’m teaching something about leadership.  That ought to be effective without being needlessly traumatic, right?

My boys have demonstrated considerable awareness of how often I have an Xbox 360 controller in my hand.  They also know when I’m not home because I’m volunteering.  Soon they’ll both know what ratios are. You think that one should be favorable?

Your little people are watching and listening.  If you’re awake, and they’re awake, and you’re all in the same place, then you’re parenting.

Try to be emulable.

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Tags: anonymous dads, Bo Williams, fatherhood

Category: Anonymous Dads