Hail to the Dad

As Father’s Day Weekend is literally hours away, I am sitting here writing this article. With Dad’s day upon us and this being a blog about a Fatherly Alliance, it would be a bit stupid not to post something about being a Dad. It would be the equivalent of Mr. Hanky not coming on Christmas.

Growing up, I never really contemplated being a Father. My “Real Dad” was a bit of a d-bag and I never really knew him. He and my mom divorced when I was very young and in turn, I was raised by my mom, by herself, on a Catholic grade school teacher’s salary. My mom was sort of a jock, so I grew up playing all the sports I could handle. I am very happy about that and feel that I was one of the more coordinated kids around.

However, this isn’t about Moms. It’s about Fathers. And lucky for me my Mom got re-married when I was 12 to the guy I call my Dad (no quotations needed). While my Mom could do her best to explain things, there was truly a need for some male influence in my life. It came just in time as I was heading into a high school 70 miles away from where I had lived my entire life. My Dad taught me cool stuff like hunting (gun & bow), fishing, splitting wood, general construction, normal household fix-it stuff. What’s funny is that while I was working my butt of with my Dad and hating a lot of the work at the time, it has helped me in life as much as my education.

So, now that I am a father of 2.5 kids (2 of which are girls, .5 of which we’ll find out in Oct), I think about being a dad all the time. I blog about it… not well, but I still do it. I’d like think that it might help my kids understand where I was coming from a bit easier when they can read. I never really had any experience with helping raise kids throughout life, much less navigating a sea of estrogen like the one I live in now. I am doing the best I know how to do for my wife and girls, but it’s a learning process that I have to constantly adapt. I am trying to figure out as much about Fathering as they are about growing up. It’s tough to balance when figuring all this out: When is it ok to joke with them? When do you be stern with them? How do you tell them “No” without being negative? It’s a constant battle in my head and I fear turning into the d-bag “Real Dad” was. It’s working out in my favor.

This weekend I will get to go out and golf a bit which is awesome because I haven’t gone out yet this year. Its cool that I can get out and do this just because I have kids and my wife is pretty cool. Then for the rest of the day I will be hanging out with the family and it’s this part I am more excited about.

So what I have been trying to say for the last 40 line of text is for Father’s Day on Sunday keep in mind the reason you are golfing, boozing, or whatever without your kids is BECAUSE YOU HAVE KIDS. Without them you wouldn’t really be a dad and wouldn’t be so cool.