Brighton 🇬🇧 ➡️ Portland, OR 🇺🇸 // 👨👩👧👦 // 👷🏻 & 👨💻 // 🌿 💪🏼 🚶🏻♂️ // ❤️
You can’t pick them, but you’ve got to love them. Luckily, loving mine is fairly easy
This article was making the rounds on Facebook late last year and I just thought it was an excellent read from a regular Joe dad.
Dan starts off by describing a situation that he witnessed which is probably more common than any of us dare to consider. In this situation, a father screamed at his child until he cowered in his presence. What kind of parents wants their child to fear them, that they might lash out at any minute?
Last year, a trusted friend put a word in my ear that I have really taken to heart. That word is determination.
I’ve always been quite placid, so being determined to do anything isn’t something that comes naturally to me. With my wife wanting me to take a leadership role in our marriage, this has definitely caused some friction.
I was once the guy that rolled my eyes whenever I saw a young child waiting at the gate for the same flight that I was in. I also let out a further moan when I found out said child was sitting within 20 seats of me.
More recently, I knew I was going to be on the other end of the stick for our Christmas trip to England as I would be subjecting 240 people to the unpredictable nature of my 18-month daughter for 9 hours.
I fully expected karma to bite me in the arse and sure enough it did. Being that flights to Europe from the States take off in the evening, fly overnight and arrive in the morning, this was the worst possible scenario for us, since Ellie had been up all day (with her usual naps), but then was boarding the plane when she’d usually be going to bed. Between taking off, 2-3 hours of drinks and dinner, unfamiliar surroundings and bassinets/seats that were too small for Ellie, she was not going to sleep, and so, we were the ones with the unhappy and occasionally very vocal infant.
I am the very happy and very proud father of an amazing girl called Ellie. Parenting her has felt like I’ve found my calling. I was meant to father a daughter, which is weird given how set Martina & I were on having a boy to begin with.
Once we had a girl though, we fell in love and wouldn’t have it any other way. I couldn’t even imagine having a boy!
But now, here we are, and we are having a boy, which has forced the reality upon me and got me thinking: how am I going to father a son?
I think I’ve finally got there. I’m Scrooge.
Maybe not. I think I’m just equally as disillusioned as everyone else is about gift-giving these days.
Christmas has lost the magic and wonder that it once had and it’s instead been replaced with high expectations from your children and peers of what they expect Santa to deliver on Christmas morning (don’t you remember when you had no idea what Santa would bring?).
This has obviously been going on for a long time, and some people my age may have been the same way when they were young as kids are today. And the parents don’t help matters, giving in to the onward march of capitalism into every avenue of their lives.
I have been ever more skeptical of capitalism after watching the creep of “Black Friday” move into Thanksgiving Day to the point where families are now not having dinner together, because they’re out fighting over a TV at Walmart.
As a web developer, with my own site for documenting my thoughts and life, it seemed very appropriate that the very same day I learned that we were pregnant with Ellie, I built her a website to document the pregnancy and then her life outside the womb. And just recently I followed suit when I found out that Jack was on the way.
To me, creating a website for my kids was chiefly important because I live so far away from my family. Being from the UK and living in the US, I have a whole group of people that I care about a lot, and whom would want to follow along with my children’s’ lives closely, even though we’ll only see each other every few years.
As a side benefit, it is an excellent way in this day and age to record your children’s’ lives. It’s the 21st century baby book, except that it’s living and breathing, can be updated regularly and everyone can see it (or everyone that you want to see it can see it).
I am a Christian, so I have to acknowledge the irony in some of this, but the Oatmeal’s latest comic on religious extremism is a humourous and thought-provoking read, that is, assuming that you’re open to criticism and discussion (unlike the guy shouting “Jesus! Abortion! Monster Trucks!”)
These are the moments that I live for now. A happy daughter, smiling and staring at me, on a gorgeous day outside among nature. It doesn’t get much better than that.
Sometimes your wife knows how to make you feel really special:
I used to have dreams about Hugh Dillon and think that he was quite hot, but then I realised that he’s just an old version of you.
Martina
As the father of a young daughter, this talk by Meaghan Ramsey spoke to me at a deep level. It is one of my biggest goals to make sure that Ellie finds her identity in God, and not in the world. I hope that she is a confident, amazing woman when she grows up and that she throws off the shackles of our image-obsessed society.
I am so disheartened by how so many women have bought into this practice and grade themselves for their appearance and find their value in that. There’s so much more to it. It’s so cliché to say so, and it’s very hard to hear when you’ve staunchly convinced yourself otherwise, but beauty really is on the inside. Looks fade and bodies sag, but intelligence, humour, personality, verve and perspective only get better with age, and I can say with confidence, that as each year passes, my wife only gets more and more attractive to me.
So, let’s make sure that our children acknowledge that they’re all unique and all have something valuable to offer the world, instead of allowing them to start seeking the approval of others for their appearance.
