Being a dad is not easy. Being a dad of multiples, less so. I find there’s a lot of temptation in burying my head deeply into a sandy dune. Saint Joseph didn’t do that, though, and he arguably had a more difficult go of it than I’ve ever had (and probably more sandy dunes to choose from). Not that I’m comparing, though I am.
As a good priest friend of mine once told me, “You are not a father of five. You are a father five times over.”
I have found that It’s best to just tell God what I think He wants, and then to say, “If you want this to succeed, you’d better help me out.” It’s not a direct challenge so much as it is an impassioned plea. When a father gives a hammer to his son, it should come with some kind of instruction. Lord, please don’t let this endeavor turn into a hammer.
Now on with the show….
As a father, I’ve grown accustomed to and much less comfortable with my inadequacy. I’m a child of God and am therefore destined for greatness. Age and good counsel have helped me understand that greatness is less about what I do and more about how I do it. I see so many friends and co-workers stuck in the mire of chasing greatness in personal achievement.
It’s not unreasonable to refer to successful individuals as great, but it is not the only yardstick. By most standards, I have achieved plenty of modern success. I’ve given a lot of money to public institutions, and in return, they have given me sheets of paper saying I’m good at certain things. That has allowed me to work in a prestigious job making good money to support our family, or at least enough such that my darling wife can focus her efforts on sustaining her vocation as a mother.
What more should I seek at this point? Well, it’s important to maintain professional excellence. Man was made for work, after all. It wasn’t until after Adam and Eve sinned that God said work would be hard; prior to that, the expectation was that our first parents would tend the garden faithfully and exercise power over God’s creatures.
However, we are slaves to our work. We’re children of God, and of course the redemption of the Cross has set us free. We can, however, choose to come down from that cross any ol’ time we want and subject ourselves to slavery. God lets us do it, and it’s on me as a father to make sure my kids don’t make a habit of it later in life. How do I do that? By trying to reflect the love of God here early in life. That’s tough. Most of the time, I reflect my love of self. As a result, I stop and ask myself semi-frequently:
“Is this an offense against God, or does it just annoy me?”
Most of the time, I’m just annoyed by it. But that doesn’t mean we don’t still make our kids acquainted with corners. After all, we don’t want our kids to be annoying, even if they are virtuous.
And therein lies perhaps the largest difficulty of being a parent. We can argue or rationalize away almost any decision. If I spank, I risk engendering bitterness and resentment (after all, St. John Bosco didn’t spank!). If I don’t spank, I risk raising adults who can’t appropriately anticipate consequences for bad behavior (which could cause serious problems in adulthood).
If I demand excellence in schoolwork, I risk turning them off to a love of lifelong learning. If I stay off their backs about it, maybe they turn into lazy (lazier?) sloths who are moved only by distractions.
The paradox of parenthood often drives me crazy.
I intend for this “blog” to be a home for my continual fatherly conversion. I’ll try not to save the nasty bits. A lot of people on social media like to show off their best side. Guess what? We as parents already know this is a messy, dangerous job with high stakes. We should still have some fun with it, though.
For now, pray for me, dad. I’ll be praying for you.
