Get hip to tips
for clueless dads
Um … OK, I’m lying.
But I have picked up a few things, and judging by the intense, almost Guantánamo-style grilling I keep getting from fathers-to-be, I know there is a dearth of information out there. So I share the following, in the hopes that our kids won’t look back someday and say, “Who was that guy who kept tripping over Mom?”
1) Be prepared for harder questions. When my kids were toddlers, I could pretty much handle anything they threw at me (“Can I have ice cream?,” “Is ‘Dragon Tales’ on?,” “Is it Christmas yet?” etc.), and what I didn’t know I could make up, given that they had no reliable means of independent verification.
This changes as they get older, however, and I find myself faced with increasingly difficult queries, both factual (“How does sunscreen work?”) and existential (“Where was I before I was born?”). Fortunately, they’re not so old that you can’t distract them with candy and run away.
2) Get ready to enter the real world. As your kids mature, it becomes much harder to isolate them from people you don’t know, given their fixation on avant garde activities like, say, school. Thus it’s entirely likely that you’ll find yourself doing things in front of strangers that you’re not entirely comfortable with, such as square dancing.
The thing to remember — as you’re doing a two-step with all the other fathers who can’t believe they’re at a Girl Scout dance during a playoff game — is that you’re there for your child. Besides, it probably won’t be long before she’s embarrassed to be seen with you in public.
3) Be proud, not offended, when your kids do something better than you. Somehow I thought it would be longer before my kids started to outdo me either intellectually or physically, but apparently I was wrong. Granted, I don’t have a lot of practice at things like cartwheels, but it’s disconcerting to see your 5-year-old turning head over heels through the living room when you can’t usually navigate the coffee table without injuring your shin.
Luckily, my 3-year-old son hasn’t beaten me at bowling yet, but I’m a little worried about what will happen when they remove the bumpers.
4) Don’t worry, their taste in TV will improve. Nothing is quite as exhilarating as the day you finish that long journey out of the Barney wilderness, and find that your kids will actually watch something you can enjoy. I realize that’s hard to believe when you’re watching Laa-Laa roll down the hill for the 12th time in a row, but it happens. And before you know it you find yourself still viewing “Arthur” 10 minutes after your kid’s left the room, because you want to find out what happens to Binky.
5) Get used to letting go. It’s very tempting to try to shelter your kids as they get involved in new activities, develop new tastes and want to do new things, like ride their bicycle down the street instead of around in the same 4-foot circle on your driveway. The key is to be open to such suggestions, and then run next to them the entire way, preparing to throw yourself in the path of oncoming cars if necessary.
Beyond that, I don’t have much else to offer — hopefully these were helpful, but in the meantime, if there’s anything you can add, please e-mail me. After all, we dads know little enough that any tidbits we can share certainly wouldn’t hurt.
In particular, I’m hoping someone can tell me how sunscreen works.