"Being a Father"

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With “Father’s Day” right around the corner, ask any Dad.

We all know the truth.  We don’t want our kids spending money on any presents for us.  We just want the cards.  Something where they tell us that a little bit of us—turned into a little bit of them.

Gifts, we don’t need.  We’ve got plenty.  That’s what Amazon is for.

But what we want can’t be wrapped.

Our kids in a room, looking us in the eye. Or a heart beating through a phone from across the country.

New to the job of being a Grampie, I love watching my kids’ pals cruising around with their strollers—dangling their toes in the deep, dark, beautiful waters of being parents.

A few thoughts for the young dads out there…

Being a father.

Going in, I had no idea how to be a good one—and I feel like I know even less now. I’ve made thousands of mistakes raising our two girls so far, and I’m sure today will be no exception.

But I can tell you this.

Having a kid took about ten minutes—and that’s if you include brushing my teeth, turning on the music, and kicking the dog off the bed.

Becoming a father is something I’ve been working at every single day since my wife looked me in the eyes and said, “We’re having a baby.”

As their lives keep twisting and turning, I’m hanging on for dear life to the richest role I’ll ever get to play on this earth.

Being a father.

And if you think it’s all going by fast now, buckle in for the fastest ride in your life.

I was you, fifteen minutes ago.

And, trust me, along every step of the way, gravity will be pulling you. Into meetings. Into golf games. Into the glow of your phone at the dinner table.

Here’s my old-man advice.

Whenever you start feeling sorry for yourself, and wishing you were somewhere else-imagine you’re seventy. When you’d give your left arm to go back and spend five minutes with them. Just one more time.

And here’s why.

You can’t go back.

You can’t go back to the feeling of holding them, only minutes old—and welcoming them into the world.

To witnessing your wife holding her baby for the very first time.

To feeding them in their high chairs, driving ’em on the back of your bike, or reading to them in their beds—gently tucked under your arm.

To seeing your kids charge down the stairs on Christmas morning.

Or to standing in the back of an auditorium watching ’em sing or dance in a school play. To cheering on the sidelines at some match—all baby horses, just trying their best to stand up in front of their friends.

I’m not saying it’s all pretty.

No doubt about it. It is a roller coaster—with unbearable turns, when you just can’t wait for the track to straighten out.

You think you’re losing sleep when your kid is just a few months old?

Just wait for the back half of high school. Or when your kids are home for summers from college.

Tell me how that feels, waiting up all night long, for them to come strolling in the door.

I still think about times raising my voice to them over things that didn’t matter. About things I regret I said, or did, or didn’t do. You’ll have those nights, too.

And here’s the thing nobody tells you. They forgive you. Faster than you’ll ever forgive yourself.

But I can promise you this.

As they grow, so will you. You will become the kind of father, the kind of man, who does the right thing when the moment calls for it.

You’re going to learn the meaning of a word that’s the biggest word in the world.

A word you think you already understand.

You don’t. Not yet.

You will the night you’re standing over a crib at three in the morning, just watching them breathe—and you realize you have never, in your whole life, been this scared of losing one single thing.

Love.

And as days and years march on, it just gets deeper.

But there’s the bonus nobody warned me about. I thought the ride ended after college.

Nope.

You’re still on the team. You just don’t get to play as much.

They still want a dad. A voice of reason at eleven o’clock at night, when the world’s falling apart.

Somebody who’s seen worse. And is still standing. Somebody whose voice stops shaking the second theirs starts. And who always picks up on the first ring.

Maybe not every day, but when they call, what a thrill it is to come in off the bench and get back in their game.

Give yourself a treat tonight, before you go to bed.

Look in the mirror. Take a good long look.

And see in that mirror the generations before you—who would be so proud of the man you’ve become.

And give thanks for the greatest gift you could ever imagine.

The privilege of belonging to that sacred fraternity.

Being a father.

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Jimmy Dunne is a modern-day Renaissance Man; a hit songwriter with songs on 28 million hit records; songs, scores, and themes in over a thousand television episodes and many hit films; a screenwriter and producer of hit television shows; an award-winning book author; an entrepreneur—and his town’s “Citizen of the Year.” Reach out to him at j@jimmydunne.com.