This isn’t big letting go – these are the smallest of baby steps in letting go.  This the first sip of beer as a kid and thinking I’m not sure that tastes any better than my Mountain Dew and you decide to stick with the sweet citrus nectar.  That kid doesn’t have the foresight to realize things will change and beer will win out and as parents we similarly wish to hold on to our kids for a long, long time.

As parents though we can’t do this. We have to start to let go because eventually they go whether we take the little steps to acclimate ourselves or not.  For me it’s been the swimming and swinging that’s shown me this.  Six months ago our daughter could not be trusted on a swing Every trip to the swings at our playground ended with a bumped head, butt, shoulder, or knee.  She never grasped that it swung forward and back and that there was a certain clenched cheek position that allowed you to say on the swing.  Now she gets it and wants to take full advantage, but as she rockets – my perception – back and forth and squeals with laughter, in my minds eye I see her launching off the swing and through a neighbors window.  Ditto for her jumping in the pool. She has one flotation vest and three sets of adult eyes making sure she stays above water but it’s still hard to comprehend that this baby, my baby, doesn’t need hands held, coaxing or pleading to get it.  She just does it.

I think part of the reason my world view like this exists is because I did everything for them.  There’s not an act they do now that I didn’t do first. And when you go to teach your children something you adopt a certain mindset.  You do this so you don’t lose your mind because teaching them to eat and poop is never easy but you accept to do it in a loving way.  Then when they do it on their own there is an internal voice – sometimes very quietly – asking wait, don’t they need me for that.  This need becomes constant and we get used to it like it’s another part of the climate we live in.  Kids always need their parents but this need is always in decline.

Watching a three year old that has self dressed herself for the pool with goggles, flippers, different colored swim tops and bottom could be an archetypical moment of happy parenting.  Funniest Home Videos comical.  But as we laugh we also know that our babies are growing up, one jump-in-the-pool at a time. 

I can’t believe umpires haven’t left en masse.  This can also be true for little league dads though they’re usually more malicious. 

This isn’t saying I couldn’t be good with the hammer.  I used to be really bad at golf but after five summers I can play a full round without losing a ball and regal my wife with stories she only mostly ignores.  Through many repetitions I learned how to play golf, and if our household income suddenly relied on the arc of a hammer I could learn that too. 

It’s much murkier to learn about raising kids.  For whatever reasons parents seem to be much more bullish in rejecting advice, and neglect taking more proactive steps on learning how to be better parents when they’ll commit much more time to their hammer or golf swing.  The attitude that They’re my kids and I know what’s best for them is really ignorant.  The physical act of birthing a child should earn mothers some amount of autonomy and fathers too play a role in setting the tone for their children but consider how little actual self-improvement we seek. 

A typical Lamaze class will last for eight weeks for one hour each week and we easily rationalize this because the birth is a big-fucking-deal.  It’s a new event that has no rival and deserves every bit of this attention. But in many cases this is the end, the end of the learning process.  From that point out many parents follow the same path theirs did – consoling their dreams with that axiom of settlement; well I turned out alright.

Parenting takes a lot of mental energy and giving your kids all that they deserve is almost impossible – not a shortcoming of your own but rather of their demands. Because we try so hard to reach this level it feels like we’re doing a good job but in many cases all we are doing is banging around the nail instead of pounding it in.

We need to get better with our hammers rather than exhaust ourselves with the banging.  The easiest way to do this isn’t to buy books or enroll your family in classes.  The easiest way is self-reflection.  It takes more mental energy now to use less later. 

After your kids go to bed think about two things that went wrong today and two that went right and note the differences, the inconsistencies, the circumstances.  Think about the non-meltdowns and meltdowns and compare and contrast them.  This process will lead to better external actions and internal choices. 

When you swing a hammer it’s relatively simple, lift and bring down and if you hit the nail flush move on. Raising kids is more like building a house and if you think about how to do the little things better, everything will grow. 

Wonderful though it may have induced a stomach ache last night. Recipe, though you’ll not need to print anything.

Being prospective as a parent is really hard, and when we are it’s not often in the most meaningful ways.  We look for life insurance that will help our kids if something happens to us and we save for some future college.  Some of the more pragmatic parents will look to future tangible needs – should we get the small or medium swing-set, the slightly larger shoes and clothes?  These things appear nice but are rather trite.  Especially compared to asking what type of person is my child growing up to be.

This is a big question and one that’s hard to answer.  We find that our own lives have shifted and shimmied, adapted and aged.  Maintaining a view about the people we want our children to be is hard through these changes.  As a kid I remember driving west toward the Rocky Mountains and seeing how the mountains changed as we got closer. Their look evolved from something mirage-like on the horizon to something otherworldly – we were from Ohio.

We also don’t want to make them.  Our kids aren’t a car being assembled where we choose make, model and temperament.  There is also no proof that violin, Spanish class, soccer and arts have an immediate impact on them becoming the best person – becoming their own archetype.  What we, as fathers can do, is be our best.

If prospecting is difficult because it is a macro task in a micro world then forgetting about the little things and aiming to be a better father is just as hard.  It’s easy to let immediate stresses and projects and requirements run into time with your kids.  It’s like you’re in the middle of a river trying to catch all the fish that swim past in a net while your son or daughter is yelling for something from the shore.  You think that this immediate task of catching the fish has to be completed immediately.  It often doesn’t.

The only idea I’ve had about how to raise my daughters lately is to show them how I can be my best.  To devote time to them, to realize that those moments are like investments and they’ll pay better than any I make in work, intelligence or fitness.  It’s my clear vision.

This Father’s Day while eating your steak in your new shirt and reading a card from your children about how you are the best dad in the world think about how you really can be it.