This Father’s Day, I wanted to give myself a present. I wanted to write a blog post reflecting about how the best Father’s Day present is taking a minute to appreciate the incredible gift that fatherhood really is. I wanted to share some lessons that I learned from my oldest daughter this past week.
There are times I like to complain a lot about my kids. There are times when I feel like have 3 feral children running around the house is hampering my ability to have abstract, adult thoughts. They always seem to interrupt my wife or I just as we are about to say something really important. And let’s not even bother to mention how expensive they are.
But when I really stop to think about my life, I’d be really sad if there wasn’t a kid doing cartwheels through the dining room. Yes, sometimes I wish for quiet times, but parenting has allowed me to give and receive true, selfless, love. This love is such a gift. I realized this past week that my oldest daughter is by far a better person than I am. I wanted to write a time capsule about how cool fatherhood is for me right now.
K1’s life story
My oldest daughter “K1” was born when I was 25. This is quite a young age to have kids among my peer group (highly educated, high income white people). As a result, K1 experienced most of my 20’s with me. Starting when she was 3, she went to graduate student house parties with me. Also, since it’d be another 5-10 years before my friends had their own kids, she learned to hang out with the adults.
Lessons I learned from my daughter
The other day, I went on a field trip with K1 and I was able to observe her in her natural environment. I try to be super hands off in all of my kids lives. So my chaperoning involved watching the kids from as far away as I felt was “safe”. (Unlike other parents who were meddling into forcing kids to play with other kids to make things “fair”. Parents piss me off). Anyway, my daughter did something that really made me think hard about myself. In fact, she taught me a pretty profound lesson. It made me realize that while parents often think about what we are teaching our kids, we should instead think about our kids as teachers.
I was supposed to chaperone the kids on a hike. I had 7 kids. Six of them seemed like normal 5th graders. One of them, whom we’ll call J. seemed… less normal. Honestly, my first thought was “OMG! I have to chaperone this kid. What if he does something weird‽ What if he causes problems the whole day.” I’m not proud that those were my first thoughts, but that’s pretty much an accurate an encapsulation of my thoughts.
Hiking with 6 random kids and your daughter
Despite my initial fear, we all set off on a hike. Everyone seemed pretty happy (it was a gorgeous day after all) and we slowly separated into two groups. Five of the kids were a little bit further ahead, and my daughter was talking to J. As we ascended a hill, it was clear that J was starting to struggle with the hike. Out of the blue, my daughter said in the sweetest possible voice, “J, would you like me to carry your backpack for you?”. He immediately said yes and had a big smile. They continued to walk together and eventually were able to catch the rest of the group. It was so cute.
There was one annoying moment on the hike. When K1 and J caught up to the group, one of the girls in the group immediately said, “J! The teacher said you shouldn’t ask anyone else to carry your backpack on the hike! What are you doing!” And K1 simply responded, “He didn’t ask me to carry it, I asked him if I could carry it”. But the girl told K1 that it wasn’t fair and kind of stormed off.
Naturally, I was *so proud* when I observed this interaction. While my first thought was being worried about J being an inconvenience to my day chaperoning, my kid saw someone who needed help and helped him— even though other kids were bothering her for helping someone else.
When we were finally in the car and away from all of the other kids, I asked. K1 about why she carried J’s backpack. She just said, “Dad, it was easier for me to carry two backpacks for him to carry one backpack. So I just carried it.” That just blew my mind. It immediately brought to mind this Zen short story about the 2 monks. My daughter was teaching me Zen lessons about choosing to simply help others and move on. It was beautiful.
I spent all afternoon thinking about what she said. And it immediately made me think of privilege and the PF blogosphere.
The lesson of the backpacks
How many times in life is it easier for one person to carry two (figurative) backpacks than for another person to carry one. If we look at the PF space, some people (like me) came from stable homes where they had enough food to eat every night and plenty of time to study for school. Others came from much different circumstances.
Many times, it seems easier to just think about your own backpack. That is, “Hey- I made good financial choices and worked hard. I deserve to be FI. If I can lift this backpack, I don’t know why you couldn’t lift it.” And that’s true- achieving financial independence takes hard work. However that “backpack” is more difficult for others to lift. It’s nobody’s fault that our backpacks don’t all weigh the same, but we can’t pretend that we’re all on the same journey.
I love how my daughter’s natural actions were to assess the situation, decide to help someone in need, and jump into action without making a big deal about it. As an adult, I think I’d probably asses the situation, and spend a long time thinking about whether I *really* needed to do something or if I could get out of it while maintaining face.
The gift of fatherhood
What is Father’s Day all about? Is it about getting a tie or coffee mug from your kids? Or is it about getting a “day off”? My friend has always wanted to spend Father’s Day on the couch watching the final round of the US Open and is bitter he’s never been able to do it in the 19 years he’s been a parent. Why do we even have Father’s Day? It’s not like dads carried their children in wombs or magically created food to cause their children to grow ex-utero.
Fatherhood is such a joy for me. I don’t need any special recognition for it. I think it’s cute to get a handmade card from my kids, or a thank you kiss from my wife. The only gift I want on Father’s Day is a gift that no one else can give me— I want the gift of reflection of how amazing it is to be a dad.
While watching my kids develop from helpless lumps to informed citizens is amazing, it comes with so much chaos. Soccer carpool, shouting, sibling fights, tantrums, spilled milk, skinned knees, report cards, daycare, school plays, vomit, “are we there yet”. Sometimes it’s all a jumbled mess and I just want to scream. So yes. It’s all those things. But it’s also the most magical thing in my life. Writing this post allowed me to step back and appreciate the amazing gift fatherhood is.
The backpack story was just one of many lessons I’ve learned from my daughter. What teaching moments have you been a part of? Leave a comment!
K1 sounds like a good kid. Nice job.
Our son is still young and he’s very immature. Hopefully, he’ll grow up to be like K1.
I spent Father’s Day puttering around the house. We didn’t make a big deal out of it, but I enjoyed it.
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I think this is a beautiful recollection of your daughter’s kindness and empathy. You must be doing a good job Dad Fig. The teacher in me also appreciates your hands-off style.
LS