Kids

Kids write about their Dads on Father’s day. What should a father write about? Kids. After all, he owes them his status.

I wonder who gets the most out of the relationship between fathers and kids. Fathers love babies as much as do mothers, but they really don’t have the instincts to know what do with them, so they may seem a bit less involved – perhaps even stand-offish – in early years. That was the kernel of truth in Michael Keaton’s Mr. Mom that made the comedy film funny.

It’s later that dads come into their own, when the resident gremlins finally become sentient beings. That’s also when the tykes are getting the idea they’re independent, so dad’s participation isn’t always welcome.

Doing it right means setting limits, encouraging participation and criticizing performance. Limits were a combination of practical considerations – like family financial resources – and priorities.

There was the great car and work debate. Kids want cars. Mobility, they whine, but really they're asserting independence (for which most parents instinctively know they aren't ready). The job is part of the same topic because it’s necessary to pay for the car.

My kids lost that argument. Even in a metropolitan suburb the mobility thing didn’t fly (bus, friends, parents), and thus the job wasn’t so necessary, either. To earn enough to support a car, there’s little time left for study. That’s where priorities come in. What are we here (in high school) to do anyway? Whatever might come after, certainly it’s to take advantage of the learning and participation unique to those years.

In the learning thing they all did very well. Did it help that the jobs were over vacations, not year-around?

The participation part was baseball, dance, stage plays and musicals, softball, declaim, choir, cross country, and volleyball – I may have missed something. They were successful in those things, too, appearing on high school, but on regional and community stages, “going to state” in declaim, All State choir, stealing bases in little league, and much more. Even in those considerable accomplishments there was a balance between praise and criticism.

I cared not only about what they did, but how well they did it. Pushing them? No, that wasn’t the issue so much as it was realism. What benefit can there be in promoting an ability a child simply doesn’t have? Particularly if it were to supplant time they might spend developing one they do have.

Still, I’m certain I’ve gotten more out of all that then they did. It was – and is – far more fun to be their dad than they’ve had being the kids.

They’re all college graduates, one now a professor at one of the premier colleges in the nation. One in law school, having already graced film and stage in LA. One writing – what he wants to do. Two of them were officers in our armed forces – one still is. Musicians, writers, actors, commanders, professors, athletes, students of the law.

I can hardly wait to see what comes next.