They should make coffee cups that say the most Average Dad in the World. You see I am not shooting for the best dad in the world title. No, I am striving to be an average dad. Its a difficult task. You don’t have to be perfect but you also can’t make too many mistakes.
Being an average dad shouldn’t be considered a negative. As long as I am consistently OK at being a dad, then I have succeeded. I am not shooting at being the Babe Ruth or Barry Bonds of fatherhood. No, I want to be like Craig Biggio, Ichiro or even Derek Jeter. Jeter is an average hitter, an average fielder but excels in leadership and as a role model for younger players. That’s my goal. As they say in sports it’s the intangibles that make the difference.
What does it take to be an average dad? I don’t know but here’s my attempt:
Be a good husband.
I put this point first because you need to have a solid relationship with your significant other. This means not only being a loyal husband but carve out time for you and your wife, girlfriend, or whoever. Once you have kids you sometimes forget to dance with the date you brought.
Up until you have kids, you and your spouse devote around 90 percent of your free time and affection to each other. Then you have kids, and that dwindles to 0 percent and then up to 20 percent when they’re 2 or 3 and back down to 0 percent once they start doing sports, gymnastics and other activities.. Dedicate some time to each other; a time where you forget about the kids.
Do the little things and help out where you don’t usually.
My wife does the laundry and I do the dishes. The main reason for this delineation in chores is that when we first started dating I ruined a $100.00 bathing suit my wife bought. My wife doesn’t know how to load a dishwasher the right way – and by that I mean my way.
Sometimes we will surprise each other. She will do the dishes; I run a load of laundry. This has to be done without prompting or else it doesn’t count. . Pick something that you don’t normally do and do it. If you generally work late, strive to get home by 5:30 at least two times a week. Nothing big, since its the small things that make all the difference. Flowers are great, but they can quickly be forgotten.
Don’t make these things big either. Doing the little things is not a time to measure up to your wife.You both put the same amount of effort into the household so don’t compare.
As the adage goes “happy wife, happy life”.
Give in.
I am a stubborn ass who likes to get his way. Kids can be demanding little shits that like to get their way. When these two unmovable forces meet, one must give in. Their little brains want you to say -nay, need you to say- “no” to their unreasonable requests. It fuels them.
For example, I prepare breakfast for my kids each day. This isn’t anything elaborate: cereal, juice, maybe toast. However, you pour the cereal into a blue bowl, the juice into a pink cup, and put the toast on a Star Wars plate.
Of course your kid wants the green bowl and not the blue bowl for his cereal. “Pink cups are for girls dad.” Star Wars plate, this is can’t miss. Wrong. “I want to eat off Mickey today.” My reaction is: “Seriously, I can’t please you today can I, just eat it off the table?”
Looking back on this discourse I could have just rolled with the punches. All the sudden the constant fighting leads me to be fifteen minutes behind, my wife and I are yelling at each other, kids are crying and no one’s eaten or ready to go.
All because I chose to draw my line in the sand. Sometimes you just need to give in.
Relax.
Raising kids can be stressful without thinking that every decision you make or every trait they exhibit is going to somehow adversely affect their future. Are they going to the right school? Did I buy the right sippy cup? Why does my kid suck so bad at soccer? As a parent of two young boys, who cares?
I used to handle dependency hearings (that’s where the state takes your kids away). The parents were usually meth heads, had major mental issues, beat their kids, and manufactured and sold various controlled substances in front of their kids.
Those parents were bad parents. The decisions they made seriously messed up their kids. The mere fact that you sent your son to a B grade preschool rather than Ms. Fussy’s School of Fine Learnen to save $20,000 a year makes you a good parent. Good parents act as if the simplest decisions will lead their kids down a path of destruction.
The majority of decisions we make as parents are minor. Maybe I should have waited until my kids were 8 or 9 to watch Die Hard; they’ll be fine. Its so cute when a 3 year old yells yippy ki yay.
I just ask myself WWMHCD (What Would Meth Head Client Do) and do the opposite.
Have fun.
This point ties into relax but is so important. Your kids need to see you smile and be happy. Embrace the activities that they enjoy. You don’t know anything about baseball. Go to Youtube or pick up a book and learn so that you and your kid are learning the game at the same time. Your kids, like to ride bikes, so ride bikes with them. Take them hiking, play at the playground with them. Play games, interact. Make homework time fun. Remember to smile at your wife and crack jokes with her. Although outwardly kids hate to see their parents be affectionate, internally it makes them smile.
These standards seem simple enough but ask yourself when is the last time they all coincided together. They are no brainers, but why can’t we put these all together. Looking at what I wrote I do not meet the standards that I have set out. It doesn’t mean I am a bad dad, it just means I’m not meeting my own goals.
For me, 3 and 5 are difficult to put together. But when number 3 doesn’t fall into place, number 1 goes by the wayside. Then 4 flies out the window. The little things set out in 2 become big things and the wife and I argue about who does more around the house. 5 is shot.
When you look back at Derek Jeter’s career there will never be a point at which you can say he was the best hitter of his era or even the best fielder. He was consistently average but he never buckled under pressure – he did the little things. He did average perfectly. That’s my goal. I want my kids to look back and say “my dad may not have been an astronaut or the president but he was always there when we needed him – he was a rock.”