A few weeks ago, my son Peter and I were wrestling when he grabbed both sides of my head, opened his mouth, and took a big bite out of my temple. It really hurt. I screamed, and felt something wet on the side of my face. Was that blood? It wasn’t, but I pictured myself with an open flesh wound and got woozy. Anne started laughing. Peter started laughing. I just kept yelling.
Fatherhood can be painful.
This is my second Father’s Day, but it really feels like my first. The twins were only seven months old last year, and I felt less like a dad and more like an overwhelmed pet owner. “Two? What were we thinking?” That first year, the job was purely executional. Anne and I had to keep the kids alive and safe, and not destroy our marriage in the process.
But eventually, our kids changed from fragile babies into durable toddlers. They became real, little people. And all of a sudden, I found myself feeling like a dad.
In fact, I found myself feeling like my own dad.
Two of my earliest memories of him come from a family trip to Paris when I was six years old. In one, he challenged me to a race along the sidewalk outside Sacré-Couer in Montmartre. I felt like the fastest person on earth until he skipped by me, unwinded, right before the lamppost finish line. In the other, he made me return my cousin’s 20 francs coin after she’d “given it to me” without knowing how much it was worth. I felt ashamed at how easily he’d seen through my trickery.
A stern hand and a big heart.
Later, while abroad in college, my friends and I got drunk on an Argentinian tour bus and made complete fools of ourselves. A bribe stopped us from being kicked off of the bus, and we’re lucky we didn’t get kicked out of our program. It was the kind of stupidity that only seems cool to an immature, selfish 20-year old. If I had been one of the passengers sitting nearby, I wouldn’t have been half as forgiving as the people on the bus that night.
I told my dad the story a few days later, expecting him to think my foreign debauchery was cool. He didn’t. “Your mom and I are extremely disappointed in you. We didn’t sacrifice like this for you to squander the opportunity. You’re better than this.” And he was right. I was better than that.
A stern hand and a big heart.
Obviously, Peter did not really want to bite the side of my head. He was overexcited, and the line between an open-mouthed kiss and open-mouthed bite is pretty slim at his age. I’m confident that he won’t be biting kids come middle school.
But ignoring it, while far easier in the moment, does both of us a disservice. It keeps Peter from learning the same lesson I learned at his age, and my father before me: that bad behavior has consequences. And it steals a practice rep from that future day when what Peter needs most is a father who will tell him what he needs to hear. For his own Argentinian bus debacle.
Because people are not born with the self-control to act appropriately on a public bus. They’re raised that way. The standard didn’t originate with me, but it’s my obligation to carry it on.
This past weekend, we were out at dinner when it was Eleanor’s turn to lose it. First she threw her bread, then she climbed out of her high chair, and finally the tears came.
It was the night before Father’s Day, and I was looking forward to the New York strip I’d ordered. But no child of mine is going to throw food in a restaurant. So we went and sat outside, and I ate the steak from a takeout container later that night.
I’d do it all over again if given the chance.
Happy Father’s Day!
See you next week.
Emmett
Jesus said to the Twelve:
“Fear no one.
Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed,
nor secret that will not be known.
What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light;
what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops.
And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul;
rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy
both soul and body in Gehenna.
Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin?
Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father’s knowledge.
Even all the hairs of your head are counted.
So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.
Everyone who acknowledges me before others
I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father.
But whoever denies me before others,
I will deny before my heavenly Father.”
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