I’ve been a parent now for about as long as I haven’t, and I’ve learned a couple things.
It’s easy to be a crappy dad. It’s not that hard to be a good dad. And it’s impossible to be a perfect dad. If you’re cruel, or mean, abusive or even just absent, you’re not a crappy dad, you’re a shitty human.
The key to being a good dad? Show up. That’s it. Be there. The key to being a crappy dad? Don’t show up. Don’t get involved. Be disinterested.
It gets tougher when your own struggles intrude. Because wherever you go, there you are. It’s true for everything. Whatever baggage you have, whatever virtues and challenges you possess, follows you into parenthood. I’m an anxious person, sometimes self-centered, and always idiosyncratic. The way I talk can seem preachy and scattered. Like a history professor way past his freshness date, I talk in big ideas that lack context or usefulness. Every new semester I tried some new scheme to get The Boys to Achieve Maximum Scholastic Effectiveness, like some kind of angry, inscrutable ShamWow pitchman. I’m Nixon debating Kennedy, baffling, disquieting and oddly entertaining.
But I like my sons. Obviously I love them, but I like them too. They’re usually easy to be around, and like me, sometimes not so much. But that’s the spice in the relationships. It’s authentic, and trying. They are my sons, in every way.
And it makes me proud that those two guys call me Dad.
Happy Father’s Day everyone.
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