Fathers Day

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Another fathers day. Another coffee cup. Another cook out. Another board game. I never celebrated fathers day with my own. My father left home when I was just 2 and died when I was 7. I only saw my father at Christmas each year and a couple of months before he died. Needless to say I was not close to my father and missed that relationship deeply as a young man. When I got married, I took a job at a Day Care Center as the assistant director. This was probably the best thing for me to learn about being a parent. Many of the kids in our center didn't have fathers and I became a father figure to them. At the same time, having to take care of and entertain 15-20 kids all at the same time, you learn some skills and tricks to keep everything going. Those skills were invaluable to me as a parent. I knew how to get down on the child's level. I learned how to play as a child, think as a child and be silly as a child. I learned how to set limits with kindness and gentleness. Then when I had my children, it seemed as though many of the things I did with the kids at the day care, didn't carry over with my own children. I found that at times I was playful and imaginative but other times I was less patient then I should have been. Less understanding and not as gentle as I would like to have been. Now that I have a grandson, I find many of the skills I had developed from the day care, returning. I am more patient with him then I was with my own boys. Perhaps it is because I didn't have to be "father 24/7" with the kids at the day care and I don't have to be "Grandfather 24/7" with my grandson. I get to see him and do things with him during the best parts of the day, just like the kids at the day care.

Being a father is no easy role. The hardest part for me was seeing any of my boys get hurt and it bothered me more to see their feelings hurt then a scraped knee or a broken arm. But hardest of all was when I knew that the hurt feelings was because of something I did or said in a moment of anger or irritation. I would do anything for my boys, but sometimes the best thing I can do is to let go and let them figure things out on their own. I think letting go and watching from the sidelines can be the most difficult thing I have ever had to do. I just want my boys to know that I feel it when they hurt and I feel it when they laugh. I here watching from the side lines. I'm your Dad-- and I'm just saying.