Meditations on Fatherhood...

Mrs. G.'s sister is going into the hospital today for a planned Caesarean section birth of her first child. This is the youngest of the three girls; the other sister had a daughter two years ago (coincidentally, on my son's birthday. We got a call and she asked to talk to The Boy, and told him that he had a special birthday present: a new cousin! He told her he would rather have had Legos™...). Our house has been abuzz with preparations for the new child; my wife was point-woman for the shower held a few weeks back as well as generally being excited as all get-out about the new addition to the family.

A new baby. Their first baby. It's been well over eight years since we brought The Boy home from the hospital, and rapidly approaching six years since bringing home BabyGirl G. The days of 3AM feedings, diaper changes, and car seat carriers are long behind us, a distant memory buttressed only by the leftover items in the garage or basement. I remember the uncertainty, the gripping fear of not knowing what to do with this new being, the near-panic of realizing that my life now had meaning far beyond my own selfishness.

It began a quest for self-improvement that had me quit smoking, lose a significant amount of weight, start exercising regularly, and generally taking a lot better care of myself than ever before. It was two-fold; first off, I want to be around for my kids as long as I can - Dad G. had a pretty significant heart attack at 56, and I was in worse shape than he was at a comparable stage in my life. Secondly, the single most important way to teach your kids the right way to do things is to live that way - I didn't want them growing up thinking that sitting on the couch, watching TV for hours on end and slowing morphing into Jabba the Dad was a lifestyle to emulate.

But I'm getting ahead of myself...

No one ever tells you, when you have kids, just how fast it goes; how the days and weeks meld together into a blur. You celebrate the milestones, the first steps, the first words, the first day of pre-school; before you know it, you've got school-aged kids that are pretty darn independent (although left to their own devices, they *will* try to pass off chocolate milk and Kit-Kats as breakfast foods...). It's a crazy, happy time that goes by far too quickly, and I understand now, more than ever, why seasoned parents told me not to wish time away when my kids were babies.

Each stage has been nothing short of magical; from the newborn baby stage where they pretty much sleep 26 or 27 hours a day, to the toddler stage, where they stagger around the house like little teeny drunk frat boys (complete with throwing up on themselves!). Before you know it they're off to pre-school, 2½ hours a day for two days a week of "structured" playtime and rudimentary learning. Along the way they get potty-trained; they learn how to dress themselves and eat without looking like a scene from a Quentin Tarantino movie (BabyGirl G. is still working on this part) and a thousand other milestones that you try your best to document in a vain attempt to stem the flow of time...

And then comes the day when you put them on the big yellow school bus...

Sending them off to school opens up a whole host of other psychoses. How badly are they going to be indoctrinated? What if I can't help them with their homework? How the heck can we fit in all their activities and still have time to breath? What if they get bullied? What if they are the bully? There's so much you can obsess over (and believe me, I do) and so very little you can realistically do. Once again, the single best thing you can do is lead by example - join the PTA, step up to be a Scout leader or a coach, do anything you can to show your kids that the best way to learn is by just doing...

And then there's the future. In just a few years The Boy will be off to middle school (which was called junior high back in the Pleiostene era when I attended it) which brings a new host of issues all to itself. Is he mature enough to be trusted home alone for an hour before Mrs. G. gets home? How will he handle peer pressure on things like smoking, drinking, or drugs? What about - {GASP} the change??? He's going to start noticing - and liking - girls...

And we won't even begin to get into the holy hell of what will happen the day some little punk bastard shows up at my house with lechery towards my sweet little princess on his mind...

Once again, all we can do is keep the lines of communication open, treat them as we'd want to be treated, and set guidelines and rules for them. Equally important, though, as parents it is our solemn duty to make sure that they abide by and live by these rules - and that means punishing them when they break the rules. Sure, it's great to be friends with your child - no one ever really wants to be the heavy - but you can't always be their buddy. Sometimes you've got to be the hardass, the "stupid harsh" parent who "won't let [them] do anything" when "all [their] other friends get to do [X]". It's not all fun and games; and sometimes they have to lose in order to win.

As adults, we desperately need to lead by example. All the railing in the world against drinking falls on deaf ears if they see Daddy in his cups every Friday and Saturday night. The best exhortations to "do the right thing" fall spectacularly flat if they see their parents lying or cheating. They won't learn self-control if they see Daddy screaming at the soccer coach. They won't learn humility if Mommy over-praises them for every little thing.

No one ever said it would be easy, this parenting thing. But then again, if it were easy, any asshole could do it. And, sadly, most have no qualms about trying... In short, the best advice can be cribbed from Bill & Ted: Be excellent to one another. Live the Golden Rule. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Be fair, honest, and, above all, loving.

Everything else is just gravy.

That is all.