Not just pizza buffets and Amy Adams movie marathons. It’s easy to do with parenthood. It’s good to jump in emphatically when you become a parent, but you have to find a way to do so with two feet – and your identity intact.
A young mom to a boy named Reiko – whose name means love and gratitude – balanced motherhood and self-preservation, even tossing in photography and her blog. She shares with me an appreciation of all things Jennifer Lawrence.
See, I’m not the dad who fussed too much in the weeks leading to my oldest daughter becoming a high schooler. Why? Well, the inevitability is a factor. It’s not as if I can keep her from high school (short of just not dropping her off).
Me keeping her home to watch Ghost Adventures with me wouldn’t make me any less old.
It won’t grind to a halt the tumbleweed of progress, and I’d have to tote her around town to her menial job five days a week. Dads don’t worry about such eventualities until they’re right on us, like a heart attack.
Here’s the first guest post on Coach Daddy – from Erica Stewart, formerly of Modern Parent Online, and now mom behind the blog DevinandErica, which serves to find order in the world of parenting, even as dads like me are kicking up the dust and tickling the kids at bedtime. Be sure to check her out!
***
When you sit back and think about your dad, my question to you all is, “what makes your dad a father?” I’m sure that at some point, you have come across one of those Facebook posters with a saying such as “anyone can be a dad, but it takes a true man to be a father.” I posed the question on our fan page on Facebook, DevinandErica, but only had one response from Nicki Webster-Schreiber: “I always believed a father was a protector. One who builds you a fort, kills the spiders and scares the monsters away. I never had a father around but my best friends dad always did those things for us.”
When reflecting back into my own childhood, my father did all those things as well for my brother and I. However, most of my precious memories of my father are those from when I was a teenager. One of the best gifts that my father taught me was that unless I was in immediate danger, he allowed me to make mistakes and was there to catch me when I fell. He would tell me if he thought whatever I was doing was a mistake, but would allow me to make the mistake if I was dead set on doing whatever it was (this included dating – oh the horrors that went through his mind I’m sure… Haha).
Then fast forward a bit to the mid-1990’s when the movie, Father of the Bride, was released. Steve Martin’s character stated something within the movie that I always believed to be true with my own father: “While watching your teenage daughter grow up, as a father you always fear of her meeting and the wrong guy. Then there comes a point when you no longer have that fear, but the fear of her meeting the right guy.”
When thinking of that thought posed within the movie, I wonder how my husband will react later in life when our daughter brings home her first boyfriend; or when she talks about marrying her first love. I’m not going to lie, when I think of these things that will happen in just over ten years I get a chuckle. I have no clue as to how he’ll react, but I know that I’ll be there to let him know that all will turn out the way it is supposed to.
But the questions in between are what is a dad supposed to do until his daughter reaches teenage years? My advice: Allow those girls to be tom-boys if they want. Play softball? Sure. You want to play soccer? Why not? Karate? Absolutely (what father doesn’t want his daughter to know how to defend herself). Also remind yourself that you are raising a future woman. Don’t criticize decisions that she wants to make; instead allow her to make them. Be there to catch her when she falls. This may be hard, especially during the teenage years but it is something that is an absolute must. You can’t expect her to have trust in you later in life if you never instilled trust in her to make her own choices, good or bad.
At the end of it all, once she is off at college or married with her own children she hopefully will be able to reflect back on her own life and the cherished memories between herself and you with the same thoughts that I currently have. I’m not saying that my father is perfect, but that’s okay – neither am I. Who wants perfection anyway? Without the bumps in the road you wouldn’t have anything to look back on and laugh at yourself about. Mistakes make us and one another who we are. Without them we would all be Hollywood movies and – – – BORING! =)
***
Erica currently is trying to find ‘normal’ in a world of ‘abnormal’ raising a 2 1/2 year old toddler and a newborn on his way. Although this may seem typical for most parents, Erica does not have any family or close friends around and is trying to build her ‘family’ from neighbors and others that she meets along the way. Follow her journey here.
Just a dad ... 