Part One
Being Dad in the
Early Years
Chapter One
Being a Dad that Makes the Extra Effort
Bible
Stories for Little Eyes
My
Dad often traveled for his job when I was young. His work and burgeoning career required a lot
of speaking and out-of-town meetings. As
a kid, though, I just knew Dad was gone and didn’t really know the reason why. Along the way Dad decided that enough was
enough, and put a yearly limit on his overnight trips. Once he reached 40 scheduled nights away from
home in one year, he capped it, and people would have to schedule things for
the following years. As a national and even
international speaker and writer this was a great career restriction not many
would make.
Even
with that travel cap, I would miss Dad when he was gone. Mom was always there, rarely leaving town
without me, and so for a kid it was hard to see why Dad would have to
leave. It was hard to go to bed without
Dad reading a story at night.
Being
a nice little church kid my favorite book to have Dad read was Bible Stories for Little Eyes. Dad knew this of course, and one day before a
trip, he gave me a tape. It had stories
he had read from that book and recorded for me to listen to. Each night when he was away I would pop in
the tape and listen to Dad read my favorite stories as I followed along in the
book.
Now,
I wasn’t a completely stupid kid, I knew that Dad wasn’t there. And it wasn’t better to have the tape than
the “Dad-in-the-flesh.” Why did this
mean so much to me as a child? As most
parents know, kids can occupy themselves without our help even if we cancelled
some business trip to
The
principle is one of effort. Kids want to know that Dad is making the
effort to be with them, love on them, and be proud of them. Children can read a Dad’s effort long before
they can read words. There are three
common problems that hurt our effort reputation with our kids. We need to make sure they don’t read these on
us:
Effort
Reputation Problems
1) Ignoring – Many times we think that if we ignore
our kids long enough they’ll “get the picture” and let us read the paper, watch
TV, or talk to a friend on the phone in peace.
As you may have discovered, not only does this not really work, but more
importantly, kids read right through it.
We don’t want to teach our kids to interrupt for petty reasons, but the
first few times a kid says “DaddyDaddyDaddyDaddyDaddyDaddyDaddyDaddy”
while we’re reading might be a good start for investing in them by quietly
teaching them not to interrupt rather than just ignoring them, or worse,
telling them to shut up.
2) Excuses – This is a huge trap for we busy Dads. The worst part is that often times we do
have a good excuse: Life is busy and the kids should know that sometimes
they don’t always get what they want.
The problem is that this response teaches our kids that we’re not able
to manage our lives and that “circumstances beyond our control” make it
impossible for us to be with them. This
frustrates kids and it’s also not entirely true. And looking at it from the kid-perspective it
makes a Dad out to be a wimp—a man that just can’t control his life and
schedule to do what he really wants
to do. We should tell them the truth and
explain life rather than excusing it away.
3) Promises – It’s not just empty promises that are
harmful. It is true that nothing breaks
trust like a promise that becomes a lie.
But all promises, even those kept by a Dad, can be harmful. The problem resides in the need to make
promises in the first place, not in whether we can keep our word or not. If we are making a promise to our kids then
we are trying to placate them because of some frustration, fear, or desire they
have. It is better to figure out just
what that frustration, fear, or desire is in them and talk about that
directly. The tough part about figuring
those out is that their real problems are often with us, and deep down we know it, and thus avoid it. We need to suck it up and love them, not just
promise to love them at a future date.
In
my home, I honestly never felt like one of the things Dad had scheduled
around. I knew I was the
priority. Even when he was gone I knew
he had made the effort to be my Dad all the time.
I
still have that tape of Dad reading my favorite stories. I wouldn’t trade it now for it’s weight in gold.
It’s a priceless souvenir of his effort to make me the priority of his
life. Your intentional effort—no matter
how seemingly small—can create that priceless feeling in your children.
Let’s
spend some time thinking this over:
“Children
can read a Dad’s effort long before they can read words.”
Am
I making the extra effort for my kids?
Does it show? Am I doing it just
for show?
Chapter Two
Being a Dad That Loves Like the Father
The
Dirty Glass
When
I was a child, few things were so essential to the identity of being a Dad than
mowing the yard on Saturday. For a
little boy emulating his father, this manly pursuit came second to only driving
a truck and shaving with a razor. Seeing
my Dad mowing the lawn one hot Saturday when I was only a toddler inspired
something like awe in me. To see him
working so hard, likely clad in the Seventies Saturday uniform of cut-off jeans
and a sweaty red T-Shirt, made me want
to do something special for him. A drink
of water to quench his thirst seemed to be perfect.
This
may well have been my first attempt at retrieving a glass and filling it up
with water from the faucet. Having come
straight from playing in the mud by the garden, I childishly forgot to wash my
little hands before grabbing a milk-blemished glass from the “dirty dish pile”
our house, like every house, had by the sink.
Flipping the one-armed-bandit of a faucet distinctly to the hot side of
lukewarm, I filled that glass to overflowing for Daddy. Wobbling out to him at the mower, shouting, I
suppose, for him to stop and have a drink, I held up that rare present to him
as it were a cup full of diamonds. At
that point Dad had a decision to make.
Response
vs. Reaction
A
father must make daily decisions on what a child’s actions deserve in
response. Teaching, stern advise,
correction, pride, encouraging words, praise, laughter, punishment: these and
hordes of others run the gamut of parental response options. But when our children take certain actions,
often we respond too quickly. Perhaps we
as fathers should not think as much about what we need to do in
the situation, but rather, what our kids need from us.
Every
action of a child is deserving of the right response rather than
the flippant reaction we often choose to make. Let’s be straight with each other: when our
kids do stupid things it ticks us off, and we immediately think, “I need pass
along some sense to this kid.” But, as
we intuitively know, when our kids do something, it often means they need
something. Reading what kids need is the
greatest skill any Dad can develop. And
giving them what they need in response is the greatest gift any Dad can offer. We must respond to them rather than simply
reacting to them. When we are tempted to
react too quickly, we should first “read what they need”, and
then respond as we deep down know we can.
The
Big Gulp
Looking
down at his earnest son holding up that milky, dirt-floatie-filled,
distinctly warm and cloudy mess of a drink, my father had one of these reaction/response decisions to
make. In a moment that is telling of
more than just the moment, Dad seemed to not even notice the glass. What he saw was his boy extending flawless
kindness to his father. What he saw was
his child’s desire to not only thank his Dad for his hard work, but also coming
in great hopes of making him proud by bringing him a drink without any help in
getting it or in knowing he needed it.
What he saw was not what he needed to quench his own thirst, but what I
needed to satisfy the Daddy’s-pride-shaped hole in my little chest. Dad grabbed that glass and knocked it back
straight like only Dads seem to be able to.
Whether he remained thirsty or gagging or grossed out I don’t know. What I do know is that experience explains
what a Father can be to his child.
Our
Father
But
that is also what God can be to us. We
as the Children of God long to thank Him for His work. And I believe the desire is in us all—no matter
how religious we are. We want to do our
best somehow. We extend our milky, dirt-floatie-filled, lukewarm lives up because of who He
is. When we do that he doesn’t even see
the dirty glass of our lives, He sees in our eyes the love my Dad saw in mine. He sees what we need, not what He deserves.
Living
that example of God’s nature is one of the greatest treasures a father stores
up while raising his children. Kids
always seem to tie their view of a Father in Heaven with the
their fathers here on earth. This
is a huge responsibility, but a relatively simple one. We don’t need to be perfect as dads, but we
can extend our own dirty glasses up to God and down to our kids. My bet is they won’t even notice our dirty
glasses. They’ll be looking into our
eyes just like we’re looking into theirs.
Let’s
consider this concept:
We
don’t need to be perfect;
we just need to extend our “dirty glasses”
to our kids with God’s help
Have
I given myself so entirely to God so that I can help my kids do the same?
Chapter Three
Being a Dad That Can Humble Himself
The
Stolen Moustache
It
wasn’t a big deal. The owners of the
store had changed many times since the early 50s. I didn’t even know why a kid would want to
have a fake moustache as a toy. How lame
and old-fashioned! The thing only cost
$1.25. It was no big deal at all.
But
to Dad it was. Here he was, a
40-year-old man going back to his hometown with his wife and kids in tow,
walking into the former Ben Franklin department store and telling the
manager, “When I was a kid I stole a fake moustache toy from this store. I want to apologize for that and repay you
for what it would be worth today.” You
can imagine the quizzical look the man gave him. It wasn’t a big deal. Even my brother and I, whom Dad insisted go
with him, knew it wasn’t a big deal. Why
humiliate yourself after all these years over something that cost no more than
two candy bars?
To prove a point.
Pride
and Humility
Every
Dad is and can rightfully be a tad prideful.
A Dad should be a rock for his kids.
Dad is an unswerving force for the world to reckon with. Dad is a man big enough in ego for his kids
to brag about on the playground. But
every Dad needs to face a moment in which he shows his kids that he is not
perfect. But the key is being a big
enough man to face it like a man. Dad
engaged in this simple restitution act to show my brother and I that very principle.
He was a man with a good sense of pride and destiny, but he wasn’t so
full of himself that he couldn’t humble himself in front of his kids.
We
didn’t have our hopes that Dad was perfect dashed against the rocks that
day. Instead we knew from that day on
that Dad was a big enough man to admit he was wrong and do something to correct
it. Even if it seemed like no big deal!
Finding
the Balance by Focusing on Two Goals
As
a Dad we want to emulate this humility.
Finding the right balance is the tricky part. None of us as Dads wants to be a weak, cream puff,
pushover around our kids, especially when it comes to admitting we’re
wrong. That’s tantamount to crying over
spilt-milk for “big-bad-Dad.” We also
don’t want to be prideful jerks that never let our kids see us crack. Some of us had that kind of Dad. Holding up that kind of image fakery severs
communication lines and passes along the wrong torch for our kids. We want to be Dads that are strong enough to
give our kids a sense of security, but humble enough to connect emotionally
with them as imperfect people just like they are. If we keep those twin goals in mind we will
be a lot closer to getting there:
1) A
sense of security provided by Dad’s confidence—The key to
making this a reality for our kids is our consistency. There’s nothing that communicates safety like
a Dad that is in control of the situation.
And there’s nothing that ruins that security like a Dad who is out of
control. Often times we Dad’s try to act
or look tough in some way, but because we look like we’re out of control, our
kids actually end up with less confidence in us. Consistent confidence in “doing what’s right”
is what “those who come behind us” want to see in us.
2) An
emotional connection created by Dad’s humility—What is
interesting about this issue is that is flows from the first. When a Dad humbles himself and apologizes to
a friend, to his wife, or even directly to his kids, the little ones somehow
see that Dad is still in control. In a way—Dad becomes someone who is still
right even when he’s wrong. If we Dads
think in this way we may start to apologize all the time for no reason and get
hooked on it! Try it sometime... instead
of covering up for yourself or giving some fake excuse to your kids, try
humbling yourself for a change. I
promise it’ll be great. That is, as long
as your wife doesn’t feint when she sees you do it.
What
do you think about the following idea…?
Being
Dads that are strong enough to give our kids a sense of security, but humble
enough to connect emotionally with them as imperfect people
Have
I built up an image of myself to my kids that will make it impossible for them
to connect with me?
©2004 David Drury
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