Dad days never end, and I’m glad.
I didn’t sign up for the part time version.
There wasn’t a switch to throw for the eighteenth birthday that said, ‘I’m done.’
I’ve been a dad since my first born, then doubled up with my second.
Since then a few surprises joined up, just not those surprises.
If you stick around you learn how other dad days have worked out.
You may find yourself as a surrogate dad for men who miss their dads, never knew their dads, or wish they had another dad instead of the one they got.
Some of the guys won’t understand the Dad Pyramid Of Needs, so I’ve tried to be a role model, but not those role models.
I work at being a boring, stay at home, one woman, man. So far, so good.
In fact, it’s not that hard to do.
When my kids were young I was always around. I went to work and came home. I worked in a museum with regular hours.
With a kid oriented focus, I did whatever came up for them.
When they played rec-league sports in grade school and had poor coaching, I stepped up and took teams.
We had birthday parties every year, did something to celebrate whatever special day came up.
My wife is a big believer in special days, so was her mom.
That might be because her mom’s birthday was May 5, Cinco de Mayo, and she set the party bar high.
When I first saw the Dad Pyamid Of Needs I could relate. There’s nothing missing in my life, but I was intrigued by what was missing on the pyramid.
The Face Of Approval
This is the face of approval you see in guys who have found their purpose and it has nothing to do with wives or kids.
Dads who work to out-do other dads know this look; everyone is lame except them.
They can be identified by their leather slip-ons with no socks, their Bermuda shorts, and golf shirts with a popped collar.
With golf clubs in the garage, whether they golf or not, and a gym membership to keep their middle-aged tone, they say things like, “I could climb a mountain, I could run a marathon, but work keeps me too busy.”
They say things like, “Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like if I had joined the Army.”
Substitute graduate school for the Army, or anything except the Army, and it works as well.
I wonder what it would have been like if I had stayed in college all the way through and become a teacher, which I thought about so hard that I interviewed with the local graduate programs for a masters in education.
At age forty-nine.
I had the academic qualifications, the letters of reference, but the educational institutions weren’t interested in some guy who wanted to make his class the best in the school.
That’s what I told them. I’d be a history teacher with an anchor classroom every student would want to be in, a welcome relief from the other classes and teachers.
I took that rejection as a loss for educational infrastructure. They needed me, but didn’t know it.
Turns out the state education system ranked 45th in the nation was good enough.
Oregon school systems ranked 45th among all U.S. states and Washington, D.C., according to the report. The Beaver State landed between Alabama (44) and West Virginia (46) on the list. The State of Washington, meanwhile, ranked 23rd in the U.S.
The face in the top pic is the face of college admission interviewers denying applicants with higher goals than keeping a job.
All it did in the end was make me more determined that my kids wouldn’t fall by the wayside, wouldn’t slip through the cracks.
Kid’s science teacher: Your son is disruptive in class when he finishes his assignments.
Me: I’ll talk to him.
Me: Hey, I talked to your science teacher. He says you’re disruptive in class when you finish your assignments.
Kid: They are easy and I finish early. What am I supposed to do, sit there?
Me: What’s your grade in the class?
Kid: I’m getting an A.
Me: Keep up the good work. Let me know if you need any help.
Kid: We ask Mom for help.
Me: Even better. Help the teacher out by not interrupting other kids finishing their work. Not everyone gets done early.
Dear boomerpdx.com admin, Keep the good content coming!
Hey Alexis, are you a blog reader anywhere else I might not know yet?