Is "Paternal" Latin for Clueless

This weekend my youngest child will turn twelve years old. I will not annoy everyone by typing in the full lyrics for the song “Sunrise, Sunset” from Fiddler on the Roof, but holy Tevye, Batman! Where did the time go?

Even though the term father could be used to describe me for 17 years now I make no claims that I know how to do this job. There have been fathers for generations. Actually, there have been fathers for as long as there have been generations. Even though people have been practicing the art and science of parenthood for ages nobody has all the answers. Oh, sure, Dr. Spock tried to write the owner’s manual for the little beggars but after a while even that book is more useful as a device to measure if the bars on the crib are close enough together to avoid injury than anything else. (Warning long-winded non sequitur may be closer than it appears: It is amazing I lived through my childhood. I had a crib with bars I could fit my head between. There where wall sockets in my house without little plastic prong thingees shoved into them. I played with an Erector Set which was totally comprised of sharp-edged metal bars. My Major Matt Mason action figures had accessories sold separately which could just as easily have been labeled choking hazards sold separately. And my favorite breakfast cereal was Lead Paint Flakes with its lovable cartoon mascot Brain Damaged Idiot depicted in bright colors on every box.)

I have been forced to look for guidance where the majority of people seek their role models for everything in life: television. I tried to be Ward Cleaver but the cardigan sweaters were too itchy. I thought about emulating Cliff Huxtable but those sweaters were itchy and ugly. Charles Ingalls from Little House on the Prairie seemed to be capable and had really great hair. That and the fact that he was light years more intelligent than the Pa in the Laura Ingalls Wilder books (“There’s a blizzard a comin’ I guess I better go to town and leave my young children and wife to deal with it on their own.”) made him a good candidate until I found out I was going to have to follow that up with being in Highway to Heaven.
This was going to be harder than I thought. Full House Dad? Too wimpy. Family Ties Dad? Too in-touch-with-your-feelings-y? Eight is Enough Dad? Too oblivious of the real world? My Two Dads Dads? Too many of them in one house.

That’s the thing about being a parent; you can’t really use anyone else’s experiences to guide you. This is probably due to the fact no two children, fathers, or situations (even similar situations hours apart) are ever truly the same. That fact is really starting to tick me off.

I have to adjust to the fact that my children are starting to leave the truly childish existence I am used to, not good at, just used to, behind. This is just one of the myriad of things my wife is better at than I am. A while back I had between 7 and 249 teenagers in my basement. Okay, it was twelve, but that’s within the range I mentioned. (Hyperbole, a perfectly acceptable writer’s tool.) Anyway, my wife came into the room I was hiding, uh, working in. She was excited our house was the “go to” house for my daughters and their friends. She was focused on the facts that our kids were in our house, they had friends who were good kids, their friends saw our house as an acceptable place to be, and we knew they were all safe. I was focused on the facts that there were several hairy legged boys near my girls, I was paying for the snacks and soda pop they were drinking, and since I am an old man with a job I would be trying to sleep as they were raucously laughing below me.

I need to stop worrying and enjoy the ride. I am very lucky because I genuinely like my children. The more time I spend out in the world the more often I find there is a smaller and smaller percentage of people I really want to spend time with. Maybe that is why people have children. It is not some primordial urge to keep the species from extinction but rather a selfish desire to create people we don’t immediately want to smack across the cheek with a sock full of lard.