Fatherhood

Sunday, March 11, 2007 |

When I first found out I was going to become a father, I panicked. I got light- headed, dry mouthed, and became disoriented for a short period. That was the last time my instincts didn’t lie to me. Since then, I’ve been completely oblivious to the miracle that is children. See, there it is. The lying.
Now don’t get me wrong, I love my kids. Without them, I would be way too rested and have to take up a hobby like whittling snakes from driftwood or wrestling wild ground squirrels for spectators.

I like to think fatherhood is like owning a pack of wild dogs. The first dog is exciting. You think you can make a real difference with patience and love in making the pup docile. The second wild dog comes along and you feel a little more out of control, but still fairly safe knowing that you can separate the two dogs if needed. Once you add that third wild dog to the pack, they outnumber you and your wife. Just lock the doors and feed them really well. It’s the only way you are going to survive.

Discipline is a key piece of fatherhood. Some go with spanking, other’s with “Time Out”. I subscribe to the “Dirt method” discipline.

If one of the kids gets in trouble, I smile and then lead them out back where I have a ton of road gravel in a pile. I hand them a shovel and instruct them to move the pile to a designated spot across the yard.

That technique works really well our son, Mark. I give him his orders, he may not like it, but he does it. The girls, however, are a complete mystery. I try to discipline the girls and it’s like a “Bridges of Madison County” marathon with all the crying. I think I’d rather go DO the punishment than have to listen to the blubbering.

I thought I had this discipline thing all figured out. Mark is the oldest, so I had time to hone my discipline skills on him. I would tell him to clean his room. When I checked on the progress an hour later, of course I immediately looked under the bed. That’s where I would have shoved everything too.
I seemed to always be a step ahead. Then we had daughters.

When I tell one of the girls to clean her room and I come back an hour later, nothing is done. At least she could have tried to shove everything under the bed or pile it all in the closet! Even just pushing all the toys towards the walls to make the floor seem cleaner would have made complete sense to me. How did she think she was going to fool me by doing nothing?
Then before I can say anything, she looks up to me with her big brown eyes and starts crying. Do I look like Clint Eastwood in an old pickup truck?
Where’s your mother?
Often I don’t even have time to assign a punishment. I may happen upon one of the girls putting lipstick on the dog and when they realize I’m there, they burst into a fit of tears.
Mark would never do that. He would say something like “I saw that the dog got into mom’s lipstick, so I was trying to clean him up” or “We were playing cops and robbers and I shot Scooby (the dog) in the mouth. I was just pretending it was blood.” That I understand!

I do take comfort in knowing that some day the girls’ behavior will all make complete sense.
There’s that lying again.

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Posted by brian