Happy Father’s Day! Have the phone calls, cards or visits from those who made us fathers come in yet? Given the digital environment, are they actually phone calls or verbose (although sometimes terse) texts? Did their gift arrive on time and is it something you actually want, need or care about? That makes absolutely zero difference. They took the time to buy or send it. The time, however brief, to dash off a text or card or call is worth something. They’re trying to tell us they care. However, they all did it for a man they don’t really know.
Our kids know us as dads. However not one of us started out as fathers. That happened somewhere towards the end of our transition from being a young something or other to being a dad at which time we began doing our best to figure out what we were supposed do with that little pink thing in blankets.
Our kids don’t remember who we were before we became dads. There’s no way they could.
Every mom and dad on the planet had lives their kids could only know from the stories being bantered around when with old friends. Kids don’t have a clue who dad was before he was dad. Yes, we hear about the happenings and his experiences but those only tell us what he did. What transpired around him. However, they don’t tell us who he really was. How he thought. His doubts. His young personality. What depressed him? What gave him that private little internal joy like a puppy could? On our very first meeting in the delivery room, did he possibly feel that internal bubble of joy for the first time? That’s exact moment the man we’d come to know as “father” Entered our life. And vice versa. However, an entire lifetime that we would never know had followed him into the room.
Moms have nine months of dealing with the concept of parenthood. For us dads, one minute we’re just a guy, the next, we’re a father. That’s an instantaneous, head-wrecking change so it takes a little while for it to truly soak in.
For most families, the period during which actual parenting is being applied usually lasts only about 18 years. Then it rapidly tapers off as the offspring makes the transition from being a kid into that in-between stage that is often capped off by becoming a parent. It seems to be more difficult for guys.
In the normal flow of events, babies show up while the father is still working his way through his twenties. Even if no kids are involved, the twenties is a pronounced growing period for all men, father or not. Unless, as teens, we’ve been through some serious stress periods, war for instance, when we hit 21, we are nothing more than high-mileage teenagers struggling with the entire concept of manhood. College doesn’t help the process one damn bit. College is a good location for education but it’s not worth a damn for learning skills meant for raising a family. For most, me included, college was our teenage years on steroids. We were totally focused on ourselves, what we liked and what we wanted to do.
Then we graduated and did our best to face the concept of an adult life. Then we met The Girl. Few of us saw ourselves as father material. We were still “me” material.
Then fatherhood happens and things become very real very quickly. We’re suddenly looking at a pink, wrinkled, initially greasy thing that we’re expected to guide into life, a process we have yet to get a good handle on for ourselves.
All that having been said, based on the official national average life span of 76.5 years, when we become fathers, we’ve already lived roughly a third of our life, none of which was aimed at making us fathers.
My original goal, when I pointed this blog at Father’s Day, was to emphasize that our kids don’t know what kind person we were before they became part of the equation. However, as I’m sitting here typing this, I’m realizing I haven’t a clue what kind of person I was before I was a father. I’m now realizing none of us know what kind of people we were. We know what we did but not who we were. That has to come from observations of others who were around us in the pre-dad period.
My two: Scott, sold his company, semi-retired father of two, one of each. Jennifer, Emmy winning movie mogul, mother of three grand daughters. All with killer personalities, intellects, talents and looks!
Speaking personally, I know exactly what I was doing (flying, building stuff, singing/playing, etc). All of us can look back and tell tales of that part of our life. However, what we were doing in the pre-dad years doesn’t tell us if we were good guys, bad guys, loveable or irritating as hell to all around us (which I’m suspecting I probably was).
In high school, I know my relationships with those around me were probably colored by the high profile my father and his business personality projected. And there are so many stories about him that I clearly understand and can visualize what he was doing before I came on the scene (he was a wildly energetic, P.T.Barnum type of businessman). However, I have no clear understanding about what kind of person he was before fatherhood than I do about myself. And that’s absolutely true of all of us.
None of us know what kind of person we were before fatherhood. Only those who knew us well in the before-baby days can accurately describe our personality, character, and all the other soft characteristics that makes us who were. However, when was the last time you asked an old college or high school buddy whether you were loveable or an a-hole back in the day. And when was the last time one of them came up to us and said they couldn’t stand you then but love you now!
The tribe produced by my two. Me far right, arm around Jen, Scott kneeling. I can’t begin to explain now proud I am of each and every one of them and how much I love them. Being a father could not have turned out better for me.
Old personal evaluations aren’t something we can pass down to our kids because those evaluations don’t exist and can’t be written. However, I do think everyone of us should make an effort to write a short autobiography of our life from grade school until our offspring were at least 7-8 years old. That’s the age when their own memories start writing their own tales about us.
Here’s an idea: take an hour or so and generate a gift of your pre-dad history as a Father’s Day gift to your kids. It won’t tell them who you were, but at least it’ll let them know what you did. That’ll be the best Father’s Day gift they’ll ever receive. At least until their kids start giving gifts to them (if they aren’t already).
See you next week! bd
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