Father Forgets

I’ve had the recent pleasure of seeing some young men I care deeply about, becoming fathers for the first time and having them ask me my thoughts on parenting.

Just the other day I had a chat with a very close friend, himself a father, about what it’s like to be a demanding father and the expectations we place on our sons, and how easily we place our adult minds inside these little bodies.

When you’re into personal development and you see the positive effects continually working on yourself has, you want all your loved ones to follow suit. I know I do. I also know as both a coach and a father, I can be demanding for that same reason.

Because I know that the discipline, focus and growth all lead to the successes we all desire. The resilience and mental fortitude I carry with me, takes discipline and work but provides me with not only an abundant life, but the equanimity and Ataraxia that so many desire.

But I have to remember I wasn’t always this way. I wasn’t always so diligent. I wasn’t always so disciplined.

I was once a child.

As men, our roles are vastly different as parents than that of women. Like Yin Yang ☯️,we are like opposites intertwined and interconnected that offer opposite parts of the same whole. We think of the mother as the affectionate and caring feminine energy and the father as the masculine, stern and strict. But that doesn’t mean we can’t be affectionate and loving. It doesn’t mean we can’t show vulnerability to our children. It doesn’t mean our roles as father should be strictly stoic (small s as in emotionally closed off, not the philosophy that enriches our lives) and as providers only. As the yin yang holds a small part of its opposite within we too must hold and embrace that seed of the other also. We are indebted to our children much more than just to provide a financial recompense. It is our duty to provide a landscape conducive to helping our children grow strong in all facets of their development but we must do it whilst remembering they’re just children, it becomes so easy to fall into a trap of criticism.

My advice is to remember how fleeting it all is. Teach them the lessons they need to know at the times you feel is right, at the times you think they can grow from the lesson. But remember they’re only little for such a short time. And they aren’t grown yet.

Children will always push our buttons. We’ll get agitated and upset when they say something that appears ungrateful. We will criticise If they appear selfish or lacking discipline. And we may behave harshly in response. I know I have reacted negatively to a behaviour my son has made in ways not conducive to achieving the best result. Then I remind myself he is only a little boy, and regretted the rush I made to criticise for a long time after the fact.

I remind myself to remember how quickly it all goes by, and if I’m not careful, I’ll fill all those precious moments of child’s play with too many moments of criticism and control.

Moments that I can’t take back.

Moments I can’t make again.

It’s no use in being too harsh on yourself as a father too, that won’t serve. In parenting, you realise how we’re all just doing our best and winging it, hoping we help play our part and raise a healthy, happy child wanting to play their part in society as they go on to achieve their goals.

As a reminder to myself to be the best father I can be, I always try to remember this editorial that I read a long time ago by W Livingston Larned and I’ll share it with you as well, in the hope that you too, will embrace its heart felt message.

FATHER FORGETS

Listen Son, I am saying this as you lie asleep, one little hand crumpled under your cheek and blonde curls sticky over your wet forehead. I have broken into your room alone. Just a few minutes ago, as I sat reading my paper in the library, a stifling wave of remorse swept over me. Guilty, I came to your bedside.

There are things which I am thinking, son; I had been cross to you. I scolded you as you were dressing for school because you gave your face a mere dab with the towel. I took you to task for not cleaning your shoes. I called out angrily when you threw some of your things on the floor.

At breakfast I found fault, too. You spilled things. You gulped down your food. You put your elbows on the table. You spread butter too thick on your bread. As you started off to play and I made for my train,you turned and waved a hand and called, "Goodbye,Daddy!" I frowned, and said in reply, "Hold your shoulders back!".

Then it began all over again late this afternoon. As I came up the road I spied you, down on your knees, playing marbles. There were holes in your socks. I humiliated you before your friends by marching you ahead of me to the house. Socks were expensive,and if you had to buy them you would be more careful! Imagine that son, from a father.

Do you remember later, when I was reading in the library, how you came timidly, with sort of a hurt look in your eyes? I glanced up over my paper, impatient at the interruption; you hesitated at the door. "What is it that you want?" I snapped.

You said nothing, but ran across in one tempestuous plunge, threw your arms around my neck and kissed me, your small arms tightened with affection that God had set blooming in your heart, which even neglect could not wither. Then you were gone, pattering up the stairs.

Well, Son, it was shortly afterwards that my paper slipped from my hands and a terrible sickening fear came over me. What has habit been doing to me? The habit of finding fault, or reprimanding; this was my reward to you for being a boy. It was not that I did not love you:

it was that I expected too much of you. I was measuring you by the yardstick of my own years.

There is so much  that was good, fine and true in your character. The little heart of yours was as big as the dawn itself over the hills. Thls was shown by your spontaneous impulse to rush in and kiss me good night. Nothing else mattered tonight.

Son, I have come to your beside in the darkness, I have knelt there, ashamed!

It is a feeble atonement; I know that you would not understand these things which I have told you in the waking hours. Tomorrow I will be a real daddy! I will chum with you, suffer when you suffer and laugh when you laugh. I will bite my tongue when impatient words come. I will keep saying as if it were a ritual:

"He is nothing but a boy--a little boy."

I am afraid I have visualized you as a man. Yet as I see you now, Son, crumpled and weary in your bed. I see that you are still a baby. Yesterday you were in your mother's arms, your head on her shoulder. I have asked too much, too much!