There is nothing more telling than this post.
How many days have passed since the last Father's Day? Don't answer that. I already know.
I have been trying to post something about being a father for Father's Day for days. As luck would have it, it just kept not happening. Often, i was too tired from the day to post or even think straight. Also, i really had nothing to say. Or at least, nothing original. I suppose that it is better to let the ideas simmer a bit.
Sadly, i still don't.
But, the bug to post is still here so, here i am. Plus, my In Laws, who have stepped in to help us with the while management of family responsibilities big time, once again stepped in to help me out and as a consequence i have some spare time and, more importantly, spare energy.
I have not had any Time. It seems that it is the first thing you truly sacrifice as a parent...
Hmmm. Sacrifice.
I don't really like that word. It seems overblown. Being a parent is all about Time.
Yet, it seems to me, the term "sacrifice" is actually a poor choice to explain the loss of Time which i have experienced. "Sacrifice" seems like a special word. It implies a separation from everything else, a specially selected thing for some specific purpose. It has a lot of sacred connotations. Parenting, in my opinion, is not a sacred act. Being a father is not a sacred act either. It is nothing special. Really.
Okay. So perhaps i need to explain. This is my reasoning:
Once you decide as a married couple to raise a family (for whatever reason), you accept the task and responsibilities of the future. You cannot even know what you are in for but you, by making that decision, have establish a certain set of rules and expectations that have been passed down for generations. It is kind of implied by the mere act of choosing to start a family. Oh sure, you could choose not to, it is well within you right - provided your partner is in agreement. Ultimately, there is nothing sacred here. It happens to all of us. It happened to our parents and theirs and so and so forth. It is part of who we are. It is how we keep the world moving.
Yet, how we were raised deeply impacts these choices that we make to establish a family.
For me, fatherhood is greatly influenced by... you guessed it... my father. But it is also, equally, if not more so, influenced by my brother. My father established the parameters of fatherhood for me. His influence upon me is so deep, i cannot even pull it out of me to inspect it. My brother, however without truly realizing it, set the example.
He has two sons, one of which just turned twelve and the other is nine years old. He is not a perfect dad (and really, there are no Perfect Dads anyway). He is not a "Go To Work And Drive A Commute" kind of dad like our father was. He is a "stay at home" dad due to his profession but this is not why he set the example. He was the first of us to get married and start the whole family thing. He kind of broke the mold and broke any preconceived notions we (my other brother and i) might have had about what being a father means. It is not the particulars that are important, it was his decision to become a father and have a family that was. It was his decision to shape his family to his own personal agenda - whether he realized this or not - that broke the mold. He did not follow what our dad did and this gave my brother and i more freedom to craft our own families. I do not believe for one minute that he had a plan about how his family was going to be shaped, it just happened. He just went with (and continues to do this) how things went/go. He has shaped his own future.
Truly, there is no way for any boy to know what type of father he might become. It is not until you make choices and life makes choices that you become the father that you are. Even then when you arrive at this "father" place, you constantly shift and change from what you were. This is what i have seen with him. This what i have seen with me. This is what my father has shown me as well. This is the lesson i have learned from watching my brother. There is no final father stage. It is constantly changing and transforming.
I have a friend who says he will never have children because, in his words, he is too selfish. I feel sad for him because i see a great father in him. I feel sad that he will not realize that these things, these things about being "selfish" may exist but it is the struggle against these types of things that make us greater. I would say the same, that i am selfish. Except that, the mere act of being a father has caused something to click internally and this counters the selfish mode - for the most part. I recognize that i am selfish but it was never ingrained so heavily in me to prevent Fatherhood. More to the point, i never believed i would get married let alone have kids (yet, others saw how this would always be a possibility) and it happened anyway. I suppose, i was not steadfast enough to prevent this transformation from occurring. My friend is very strong in his convictions on so many things. In this regard, he is weak. He has already submitted to a passed down mythology and is unwilling to change it. By the same token, he shows strength in this failure. It is this dichotomy that makes me sad that he is unwilling to take a chance on this possible future for himself.
Yet, one can only hope.
Anyway.
My identity, not a role, as a father is ill defined. It is constantly changing. I really don't have a clue where it will take me. For the moment, i am a "stay at home" dad but will change in less than two weeks. I will return to work. I fear that a distance will grow between me and my children. I didn't realize this but a distance had grown between me and my son after i had taken time off and had returned to work. I am now worried that a distance will grow between my daughters and i, once i return to work. Unfortunately, I am not in a favorable position to stay a "stay at home" dad. Yet.
I don't know where things will be two weeks from now. I don't have any idea about what the future holds. The loss of Time to do these things that had once seemed important doesn't seem to be so important. Not to the extent that i should identify it as a "sacrifice." It is what it is.
Fatherhood is about being there. It is about being fully present as much as Time affords. Outside of being a Father, there are so many demands upon us. When we are working, we are beholden to the Job and all that it requires. We may answer to someone. There may be a hierarchy we serve. There are countless expectations thrust upon us. We are forced to deal with artificial and uncontrollable situations and people that we don't truly know or ultimately care about - not as much as we may about our families. We are asked to carve up our days to meet these expectations and choose to spend more time with non-family than with family...
Okay. I am gonna stop my rant.
I realize that i am torn by the experience of being a stay at home dad versus the working dad. This stint of being home with my son and girls is bringing this into focus. I am fairly certain i felt this way when i returned to work after i did this for my son. This time, however, i feel that there is more pressure and stress attached to the decision. This was as much about bonding with my son as it was about bonding with my girls. Once i return to work, I really don't know where it is going to go or how things will change.
Yet, I cannot know. This is good. This uncertainty is the place to be. The future is uncertain but it is our actions that lay the future's path. The openness of the future implies that things are unwritten and that i have a lot more choice in the decisions i make.
Right now, i am living my fantasy of being a stay at home dad. One day, perhaps i will be afforded the opportunity to actually make it a more established way of being.
