Category: Parenting

I’m in a self-righteous lather after reading a column on CNN from Jeff Pearlman, a columnist for SI.com called “A Father’s Day Wish: Dad’s, Wake The Hell Up.”

Jeff is a stay-at-home dad who has heard the stories from moms in his community about how their husbands would never change a diaper or wake their children up for school or clean up their puke.

Mood music:

An excerpt:

The woman started crying.

I didn’t expect this, because, well, why would I? We were two adults, standing in a preschool auditorium, waiting for the year-end musical gala to begin, talking summer plans and Twitter and junk fiction and all things mindless parents talk at mindless events. Then — tears.

“My husband,” she said, “doesn’t care.”

“Uh, about what?” I asked.

The floodgates now open, she told me her husband works from home. But he never drops their daughter off at preschool. He never picks their daughter up at preschool. He never wakes up with their daughter, never puts her to bed, never takes her to a movie or a carnival or a ball game; never comes up with fun daddy-daughter activities. “All he worries about is golf,” the mother said. “Sometimes he’ll take her to the driving range for an hour. But that’s it. …”

Two days later, by mere coincidence, a different mother cornered me. I was sitting in a pizzeria with my son, Emmett, and daughter, Casey, gnawing on a calzone. The woman, another preschool regular who always seems to be dragging around her kids with the worn look of a chain gang inmate, glanced my way and muttered, “My husband would never do that.”

“Do what?” I asked.

“Be out alone with both of the kids at once,” she said. “Never.”

Never?

That dads would carry on this way is of no surprise to me. But hearing about it still makes me angry.

Because it’s like looking in a mirror.

I’ve always been a hands-on dad. I clean up the throw up, bandage the scrapes and read to them daily until they started to read on their own. I still make the lunches, and while I don’t work from home every day, most weeks I get them up, dressed, fed and off to school a couple days a week as a matter of routine.

But when my OCD and addictions were slowly eating my brain, all I wanted to do was lay on the couch and watch TV. I didn’t want to talk. I sure as hell didn’t want to play.

Being a better dad has taken a lot of work. I still have a ways to go. I still get tired and lose my patience with them. I still have moments when I just want to be a vegetable. I’m not as good at watching my mouth around them as I used to be. Sometimes I have a hard time looking up from the computer when they’re trying to tell me something.

But I will never, ever choose golf over my kids.

Nothing against dads who like to have their golf outings. But to prefer golf all the time over family, well.

Fuck you.

We dads must do better than that.

All the blog posts I run Sunday will be about my kids and my father. Not to celebrate me, but to celebrate them.

Because Father’s Day is about them more than about us.

Sean came home yesterday with some new headgear from the orthodontist. It’s painful for him because its new and his mouth is still adjusting to it. He has to wear it 14 hours a day to realign some teeth that sprouted in the wrong spots.

Last night he complained that it was painful. We gave him some Tylenol and he went to sleep. But Erin and I felt awful. A parent never wants to see their children in pain.

Mood music:

For me, the challenge has always been to push ahead and make the kids go through things they must endure for their own good. Many times I caved after seeing their tears, and while I cave out of love, it’s not the right thing to do.

Caving in to the kids means they grow up spoiled and unable to deal with the challenges life will inevitably hurl at them.

But for me, it aint easy.

I grew up in a house where there was a lot of yelling and hitting. My mother was the one out of control. My father was the one who would try to comfort us in the aftermath by giving in to our requests. He has a special place in my heart for that. But now that I have two kids, whenever they experience pain, I fold.

Like anything else in life, there’s a middle speed somewhere that I need to find. I have work to do on that score.

I’m hell-bent on sparing my kids from the discomfort I experienced at their age. But some of the discomfort they’re going to go through is a necessary part of growing up. Like going to the orthodontist and getting a metal contraption fastened to the mouth — then, to add insult to injury, telling the kid he can’t chew gum, drink soda or have candy for a long time to come.

Historically, we Brenners have not been kind to dentists and orthodontists.

My late brother came home the day he got braces and pulled them out in the bathroom with a pair of pliers. I stayed in braces three years longer than I should have because I skipped appointments, stuffed my face WITH the retainer in my mouth (before the braces) and smoked, which, by the way, isn’t good for braces, either.

I’m determined not to let our kids do that stuff, because as a parent that’s what I should be doing — standing my ground.

The key is to stand my ground when the tears start flowing.

One thing will make this easier:

While the orthodontist office of my childhood was a dark, sterile and boring environment, Sean’s going to an orthodontist who knows how to keep the kids happy while they’re in the chair.

They get to watch TV. They can play the X-Box if they want.

Those options didn’t exist when I was a kid.

Which makes me a little less sympathetic.