How to be a good dad
Photo by Mikael Stenberg on UnSplash
In today’s episode we’re discussing what it means to be a good dad. We'll cover our thoughts on the following:
How our father's modeled what it meant to be a good father
Our concerns/worries about being a father
What does ‘being a good father’ mean to us and what guiding principles we have
How do we reflect these guiding principles in our day-to-day lives
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TRANSCRIPT
[music]
Jim: In today's episode, we're discussing what it means to be a good dad. Hey, everyone, welcome to the Papa Est Fatigue Podcast, the podcast for dads by dads. Something that comes up a lot with new and expecting dads is the question, "Will I be a good dad?" We're going to explore some popular ideas about what it means to be a good dad and some of the more common issues about fatherhood. We'll also discuss some of the strategies for dealing with these concerns. Keep in mind, we're in no way experts in this field. However, as recurring themes for dads, it feels helpful to address this question directly with the conversation that we'll have today. Here's my deal. I have two daughters, ages five and eight.
Dave: Hey, I'm Dave. I have a daughter who's eight and a five-year-old son.
Jim: A quick Google search, and frankly, any conversation you have with a new dad shows the range of emotions that new dads go through or expecting dads go through. There are a lot of common fears or concerns about fatherhood like financial stress, financial worries. How are things going to change with the relationship? Is there going to be relationship stress with the mother or your wife, lack of sleep, and other self-care, which is a big part of this podcast theme. There are also concerns about identity and things like growing up and becoming somebody else or changing societal roles. A lot of concerns though, can be grouped into a common theme which is, "Will I be a good dad?"
For example, some of the things that I've read about are people that had a great father and a great childhood with their dad, will they be as good? Will they live up to that standard? Maybe somebody had a challenging relationship with their dad. Will they be able to do better? Will they be able to correct some of the things that they had challenges with in their childhood? Are they ready to be a dad? Will they have to grow up? All these are questions that people have, some deep questions about what it means to be a dad. Whether or not I'll be a good dad, that seems like an important question and one that's totally rational. Of course, it's a concern.
As I've said before, mothers become mothers over the course of nine months, whereas dads just become dads, and it's unlike anything we've done before. It'd be like being dropped into a new sport without knowing anything about it and just seeing how it goes. In this day and age, dads are much more involved with parenting, and it's still kind of a new thing. If you think about one or even two generations ago, it would be unheard of, or at least very rare to see a man walking with a stroller or a dad walking with a stroller.
In fact, there was a whole movie about it. If you remember the movie Mr. Mom, and it was this whole comedy about the antics about a man that had to take care of a baby, hilarity. The men's role is really changing and there's a lot of reasons why, and it's outside of the discussion that we're going to have today, but the fact is that dads are being more involved. Dave, you and I and a lot of other dads have had conversations about how to parent, and you've described a lot of what we talk about as intentional parenting, which is essentially how do we be good dads, or how do we become better dads? That's what I want to talk about today. I mean, let's start with this. What do you think it means to be a good dad? When you hear that phrase, "How do I be a good dad," or, "Will I be a good dad?" What do you think of?
Dave: Yes, I think the first thing I think about, I guess, is part of being a good dad honestly, is just showing up. I mean, there's so many things going on, and I think to your point, about thinking about some fathers are certainly concerned about, "How is this going to change my relationship with my wife," or, "Am I going to be able to keep playing video games or am I going to find time to play golf anymore? "With all of those things as a backdrop, to me, part of it is just showing up as a dad, being there for your kids, but also the way I think about it is I think about what is it that I would like my kids to become as adults and how can I help get them there?
That doesn't mean that kids cannot grow up to become good productive members of society if their parents are absent for whatever reason, because they're working two jobs or for whatever reason. I do think about it in that framing in that context of how can I contribute to them being contributing members of society or to them being caring, honest people who think about others. It's all of the little things that you do between now and the point when you have to let them go, and I'm not talking about like 18 years old. At some point 12, 13, 14, they're going to be doing stuff on their own, even 11. Have I done enough to impart that stuff on them when they're ready to be on their own in that sense?
Jim: I want to back up a little bit, I think it was episode 25 when you and I talked about our relationships with our parents, I think in the context of working parents. This is somewhat personal question, but do you feel like you had a good role model in your father? Did you learn about fatherhood by watching your dad?
Dave: Yes. I had a really good role model and it's funny that you talk about how modern-day parenting is really a relatively new concept in this most recent generation, but I actually grew up in a household where my dad did his fair share of the work. I mean, he made us homemade breakfast every morning, which also now that I'm a dad, I realize how difficult that is to put something, biscuits or pancakes or whatever on the table every day. He never missed a concert or a hockey game. He did laundry, he cleaned up, he shopped for the groceries, all of those things that I think we're seeing more men do these days was something that I saw growing up and it was just sort of reflected.
For me, that's, I guess what my vision of what fatherhood looked like, it was that equal parenting. I did a podcast earlier in the year I can't remember which one it was, but I actually interviewed him. I think it might have been episode 25. I interviewed him and part of this was learning from his dad. He also saw his dad treating his wife, my dad's mom as equals, and I would say that I remember we would go out and we were at the grocery store one time when I was young, and my dad, they gave him too much change, I can't remember. They either gave him too much change or they forgot to charge him for something and he said, "Hey, you forgot to charge me for this thing."
I remember thinking, "Wow, like that's kind of crazy." He found those teaching moments and instilled that in me. I think that both those teaching moments, and also providing me opportunities to chart my own path. He built this relationship, my parents both actually built this relationship of trust and I was always treated like an adult. I never had a curfew, to the point where I remember I was in, I think it was 11th grade one time, I was at a friend's house. It ended up being like, whatever, 1:30, 2:30 in the morning and they're just like, why don't you just crash here for the night? I was like, "All right," and I woke up the next day and I'm like, "This was a terrible idea. My parents are going to kill me. I haven't come home. I didn't call them. There's no cell phones. I couldn't text them."
They woke up and clearly my bed was empty. "I am dead." I got home and they're like, "Oh yes, we just assumed that you crashed at your friend's place." We talk about in that episode, 25 of him saying, "What we tried to do was give you opportunities to make mistakes, but never opportunities that were going to land you in jail or something, but allow you to grow into that."
I think those are the things that I am trying to do with my children. Is to give them that opportunity to grow into their adulthood, make some mistakes, learn from them. Again, nothing egregious where there's legal ramifications or anything bigger than that, but then also model this equality and parenting and just doing my fair share within the household. Yes, I think that I had a great role model and it's absolutely something that I aspire to be as I continue this path of growing into fatherhood. What was your situation?
Jim: Yes, I was reflecting on this the other day that there's a broader again, I alluded to societal change, but there was-- I remember my first, I guess my first career, anyhow, when I started my professional life, I was in a heavily male-dominated profession, and it was just the first generation of women that were breaking into the upper management. What I found is that the women that were breaking in there were just tough as nails and they were the fighters and then the generation that came behind them could be more egalitarian, I suppose. I think, what was that 25, 30 years ago?
What I saw in my father's relationship with my mom was the tumultuous time. Both my parents are from the Midwest, much more traditional, so I saw that tension where my mom was going to school, she was going to be a grad student. My dad worked many, many long hours. I think there was this tension of where my dad was being pulled into doing more of the parental roles. Not that he wasn't good at it or anything like that, but I feel like I saw that change happen in real-time.
Alot of the things about being a father, I did see in my dad, things you talked about like showing up and lessons and things like that, but the gender roles and the mother and the father roles that I saw growing up, I feel like we were writing that change. Like I said earlier, it feels like this age of parenting or age of fathering still feels new. If we say 25 years, it's first or second-generation where we are being much more involved. I don't know that any of us had a really good role model for what it is now. It sounds like yours is better than maybe mine or better than most, but it's still a new thing.
Dave: Yes. I was reading in one of the articles that is a source for this podcast about this one gentleman who said something to the effect of, "I grew up sort of-- There was an expectation, because I'm the man that I'm supposed to be the breadwinner. I know philosophically, I don't need to just be that. I can be more than just that. I still have this block between knowing that I'm supposed to provide for the family, but then also wanting to move into this more active parenting role." All he did was, I work to provide, that's my job.
I think some people have benefited from being in the pandemic, and seen, "Hey, now I've been at home, I can work from home and now I see all this stuff that I'm missing out on. I now want to be more of an active participant, but there's the dichotomy between what I grew up thinking I'm supposed to do and what it is I want to do." It sounds like for us, at least, there was an easier ramp simply because some of that was being modeled for us.
Because of that, I think the transition for us is very easy. It's much easier than if you grew up in a very, very traditional household where you saw none of that. You might be struggling a little bit with how do I resolve these two sides of what I'm feeling. It was never anything that I had to think about, at least for me, again, because of the way I grew up. It was just a natural evolution of, yes, of course, I'm supposed to do X, Y, and Z thing.
Jim: You make a good point about the generals and the broader expectations. It's not only that we, being fathers of this age, being pulled into more active parenting roles, but there is that still hangover, the traditional breadwinner, work all day. There's some comedian that jokes about growing up in the '70s. It's like your dad came home, it's just like, "The stranger came home at the end of the day."
Other than the guy who was bringing home the bacon, they really didn't know their dads all that much. That was the parenting role, I think, for a lot of people growing up. When you and your wife found out that you were expecting, or even before then, when you think about becoming parents, did you have any concerns or worries about would you be a good father?
Dave: I don't remember anything specific. I guess part of that is, I guess, in hindsight, I feel like the early stages of parenting are actually fairly straightforward. Yes, you're not prepared for any of this stuff, like the toddlers and the diaper changing and the sleep schedules, but you can weather those storms. A lot of it's sort of binary, like, "Okay, I can learn to change a diaper. I don't know how to do it now, but I'll figure it out." I think there's a lot of that. In the early stages, I think you can fake it till you make it and you can't do any long-term damage to your child, for the most part, if you're at least trying to be a good dad,
I actually think that I'm getting more nervous as the kids are getting older. In particular, as my daughter is getting older, and she's growing into the social sphere in which there is not the same level of black and white. When they're three or four, it's all about sharing toys and stuff like that. There's a very clear like, "Well, yes, share toys, this and that." Now, with my older daughter, we're getting into like, "Well, these girls don't want to play with me." I don't know how to respond to that, because I'm not sure what the context is.
This is now where I'm getting more concerned about my ability as a parent to just help her navigate these things when there's just so much shades of gray here. Also, I'm not just dealing with my own child that I can control, I'm now dealing with other people's kids and other children's relationships with their parents, effectively. It's actually this point now that I'm the most concerned about fatherhood. I don't know, I guess maybe until they're off to college. Who knows? Maybe it keeps getting more stressful until then, but yes, I think it was really the early stuff.
I am curious, though. We were talking a little bit about what we took from our dads. Before you answer, because I'm going to ask you about also, if you've had any concerns about your parenting, but before that, is there anything that when you were becoming a father you said, "I absolutely want to do this thing that I saw my dad do," or conversely, "I do not want to do this one thing that my parents did. I'm staying far away from." Did you have any of that stuff?
Jim: Gosh, that's a good question. I think in a broader sense, I saw my dad having a very responsible civic role, that's sort of a leadership role. I don't mean he was mayor or anything like that. What I mean is that, taking the initiative and asking people how they were, responding to their problems. I mean that in a sort of the civic-minded, being a good neighbor kind of thing. Thinking more broadly than just about his family and what his little life was. That's something that I've carried with me. Just trying to be a good citizen, trying to be a good neighbor. I can't even cite them, but there's a whole bunch of little ways that that ends up manifesting in my life. I'm happy that I can model that for my girls.
Dave: Did you have any concerns about fatherhood?
Jim: As you said, there's one thing, is having a baby, which is just parenting. Then as they get older, as the kids get older, then it becomes more about being a father. As you said, the now thing, for me, it was being a father to a daughter, because I know about boys, because I am one. I grew up a boy. I've had friends. I've got a brother. I do have a sister, but she's older. She was my window or my insight into girls growing up, but I didn't know what it'd be like to raise a girl.
Early on, just raising a baby, it's not a problem, but as you're saying, as they get older, there's this whole social-emotional world that now, that I'm starting to experience it, it seems a whole lot more intuitive than I expected, but at the time it felt totally opaque like there's something that I just didn't know how I was going to deal with. I mean, like the sort of problems that girls have in social situations feel different than the social situations that boys would have, and they may not be.
I don't know, because I've got daughters, but it's starting to feel much more intuitive than I expected to. I think that's it. Other than being worried about just being a new parent, just because it was brand new, it's something I'd never done before. I didn't know anything about it other than we talked about our parents modeling for us. My concerns, as you said, going on to college, those are going to be the concerns that I didn't realize I had, and now I'm having.
Dave: It's one thing I was thinking about also about these concerns about being a good father is I do remember reading-- I don't know if it was before I had kids or not, but the thing that people always regret when on their deathbed, "I never spent enough time with my family." I think we go back to that whole-- That's generally the man because they're the breadwinner. They've spent all these long hours working and making money. Now they look back and they're, whatever, 70 years old and they're like, "I don't know who this child is that I--" Not quite that level, but I regret that.
I will say that I think about being a father and I think about what it means to be a good father. That's the thing to me that I say, at the end of it all when I look back on it, I will not have that regret. I might have other regrets in life, but I will never look back on my deathbed and say, "I didn't spend enough time with my family." That, to me, is part of being a good father. If I can, at the end of the story, look myself in the eye and say, "I did what I wanted to do with my family. I spent the time that I wanted to." Then my guess is that I've probably been a good father throughout that process.
That's my guess, but we won't know. Hopefully, for a while. I guess, I do think about fatherhood in those senses. Again, I think it's part of being a dad. It's just being there, it's just showing up. You're not always going to have the answer, but I think as long as you're trying to get there and you're trying to support your kids, I think at the end of the day, that's pretty good, I'd say.
Jim: The story idea, that's a really poetic way of putting it. I think that what I've reflected on lately is that during COVID, so this last year and a half where-- Now, that the kids are back in school, but certainly for the year and a half through last summer, we were spending so much time together. I was spending so much time with my kids that I was losing that feeling of they grow up so fast, which I thought was wonderful. I felt like they were growing up and I was there to see it, as opposed to, "I can't believe where the time went. It feels like just yesterday."
I feel like in the last year and a half being able to spend so much time with them feels like being present for their childhood and being present for my fatherhood. You talked a little bit about what it means to be a good father earlier on. I think you described it as just showing up and that's how I describe it. The things that I try to do or validation, give them lots of attention. One thing I understand is that kids, more than anything, just want our undivided attention to do just about anything.
Validation, attention, give them respect, expression of love, basically time and attention, a lot of patience. I try to treat them like little people. I mean they're little people, their brains aren't entirely formed, but give that spirit or their being that respect that I would give to anybody else and validating their life experience. That's something that I've taught myself. I don't know that it was ever something that I read about, but learning how to validate their life experience and there's the idea of, I've seen other parents do it.
The kid is scared and they said, "Oh, you're not scared or there's nothing to be scared of." There is something to be scared of. The kid's scared, so realizing that, even though it doesn't seem like there's anything to be scared of, the kid is scared and to be able to recognize that and acknowledge it and validate it, I think is really important. I think that's part of the emotional development.
Dave: Yes. I feel like that's the just sit down and listen. That you might not understand really what's going on, but if you just sit there and listen, I think a lot of times, your kids will tell you and then you'll start to go, "Okay. I see now why you're scared, because from my perspective as an adult, it makes no sense, but the more I hear you verbalizing what the problems are, I see where you're coming from." Yes, I think that's an important part of fatherhood too, it's just listening, and I guess that the result of that, or the corollary is not the right word, but that undivided attention piece.
Ultimately, that's what's required for you to listen. That piece is so important, and I think, again, that goes back to, again, finding moments to just spend that undivided attention with your child, and sometimes you have to make an excuse. You just have to say, "All right, the rest of my day is scheduled. As soon as I knock off of work, I'm going to dedicate the next 10 minutes to just sit down and do whatever my kid's doing and see what's going on and that's at least 10 minutes that they have my undivided attention every day." I think those are some of the baby steps.
Jim: The things you talked about earlier about being a good dad, and then these principles that you're describing now, how do you express that in your day-to-day life? What is your parenting look like?
Dave: Yes. One of the new things that I've been working on recently is the growth mindset. The idea here is that actually, you don't praise the outcome of what kids are doing. You praise the process and the idea here is that, so let's say that, our kids are a little young, but let's say they have a test and they get a hundred. You wouldn't go like, "Hey, nice job, great, you got a hundred," you would actually say something more to the effect of, or at least my understanding of how this works is that you would say something like, "Hey, you really studied a lot. I could see you really studied quite a bit for that test, and I think you really had it down and everything like that."
The idea here is that what you're ultimately trying to do is if you can get them to find pleasure from the process of learning, then they will become lifetime learners, and then also that the results are not as important. It's the process of going through and what they've learned. It's the whole thing about you can make mistakes as long as you're learning from them, kind of thing. Failure is an option, is the concept. In that failure, what did you learn from that?
Okay. Let's say on the test, instead of getting a hundred, you got a 50, then you would say something to the effect that, "Okay, well, what did you do this time and how do you think we can address where it seems like you maybe had some issues here. How can we get you better in that particular subject matter?" I try and do that as I see, say, drawings come back from my son. He's in kindergarten. He's still working on the fine motor skills. I won't say, "That's a great drawing of a police car." I'll say something like, "Oh, I can see how much effort you put in, because you put all these little details into the police car. You put the handle and the lights are blinking and you put little lug nuts on the wheel." Not that level of detail, but those kinds of things is what I'm trying to do with them. There are a bunch of books also that I read to them about growth mindset.
That's one that I try and put into practice at a daily level, you're applauding their effort. I will actually point out my own mistakes and tell them what I've learned from this, so it could be something at work, a lot of times I'll just reference food simply because that's a little bit easier for them to understand than some marketing campaign than didn't work. I'll be like, "Well, this time I made this new dish, it didn't work. I think I X, Y Zed," and then usually the second time I create the dish, I'll like, "Hey, remember the last time I made that dish, it was under salted. It was over salted. It was too soupy," whatever it is.
I'll say, "Do you like it this time because I think I did a better job? I learned from that mistake and my outcome was a little bit better." You are still balancing, I guess, a little bit of the outcome piece, but I'm trying to impart that all like, "Hey, I make mistakes too," because for a while I used to joke with her like, "I know everything," stupid me. She took it very literally, so all of a sudden, she's like, "Well, you know everything." I was like, "Well, okay, I've taken this way too far. "I've pulled back on that quite a bit, but yes, some of the other things in terms of just being good to people and putting yourself in their position. I've talked about this in the episodes where we talk about books and how I pick books.
I'm always trying to teach kids about-- When I pick books, there's always a reason to it. It could be perseverance. It could be celebrating cultures or differences, or because I have a daughter and we both talked about this. Understanding that she can be in the hardcore STEM fields. Those are other ways that I try and impart those things, and that's at a daily level because we're constantly reading. We still read every night, at least 15 minutes per kid. There's some good time, and then going back to that spending time with them, we eat all of our meals together. The bedtime routine also, there's basically 30 minutes of bedtime routine. 15 minutes per kid of story time, you try and play with them, and it's the listening piece. Every day, when we're eating together or whenever I'm in the car, we don't listen to music very often. We do podcasts sometimes, but usually, I like just asking them what's going on.
When we're in the car, I'll usually turn off the radio and we'll have a conversation while we're driving to wherever it is we're going. Sometimes that's with both kids, sometimes it's with one kid, but just having that time dedicated. Yes, it's not a hundred percent because I'm driving, but I don't have a phone in front of me. I have no other distractions. We're having that conversation in the car, they can't go anywhere. [chuckles] There's nothing else that they can do to occupy themselves. I also have their full attention. I think those are the daily ways that I try and make time to do all these things. I think it's important to try and find little ways to get a little bit in every day, and so it just becomes a habit.
I guess maybe that's the other thing about fatherhood is that I believe that fatherhood is not about grand gestures that happen once a year. It's not about the fact that, "Hey, I paid for a trip to Disneyland, or I paid for a trip to whatever." That's a great thing, and don't get me wrong. That's great for the whole family, but also, I don't think that when, again, when we look back on our lives at the end of the day and when the kids look back on their childhood, yes, they will remember the trip to wherever, but they'll remember those daily things. That time that you spent with them every day, that I think is the more long-lasting thing. That's the piece that is going to solidify the relationship with your children.
Jim: Those are all really good points. As far as modeling for your kids, what I was remembering was when it was probably two or three years ago, when they were just a little bit younger, and there were so many demands of my attention and every dad knows that, "Dad look at this, daddy, will you do this? Can you reach this for me? Will you tie my shoes," whatever and it felt like there were only demands and they were coming so rapid-fire that I couldn't even put two thoughts together.
It was an exercise in patience and putting myself in their shoes and understanding that this was their world, this isn't about me and what I want, it is about them and validating that and showing up, "They need my help to do this," and not being resentful about it, and just understanding that this is the service of parenthood and being patient and understanding and learning how to navigate that in a way that doesn't affect my self-care.
That's important. I talked to another father today and he was describing self-care as putting on your oxygen mask before you can take care of your kids, so there are ways that I need to take care of myself before I can put them ahead of me, but really, it's about their experience, and so I try to respond and accept their request for attention. I tell them that the greatest compliment I can have is when one of them say, "Will you play with me?" or, "I want to play with you." I think that's just wonderful. I try to show up and give them my attention and be present. Also, I try to model respectful relationships with their mom and have civil disagreements and treat her with respect and just make sure I give them time.
I tell them I love them all the time. When I say it, I try to really feel it, so it's not just empty words. I tell them I'm proud of them and that they should be proud of themselves because they should. I remember growing up and I see other people, sometimes it's not easy. It's important to have that validation of, "You're doing a good job. This is really hard, you're doing a really good job."
Those are quasi-ethereal things. It's not necessarily practical ways that I try to be a good father. Essentially, it's just about the time and attention and the little things and the patience and giving them my attention when I can. You referenced one of the articles. I said I did a Google search and there's a whole bunch of articles about what it means to be a good father, what it means to be a good dad.
Essentially, the experts would summarize it like this, that being a good dad is about the little moments, the little moments that count, the shared experiences, spending time together. As you said, it's not the Disneyland trip, it's the ordinary time. Just eating together, reading books, playing together. Again, respecting them like little people and just making sure that their experience is one that's centered around them, and not necessarily around us.
Dave: Yes, I think that patience thing is so important. As you point out, it can be super tough. Especially you have two kids, and there's always something going on, and there's always a kid that needs some help. I think that patience thing, at a certain point, you wake up one day, and you realize they don't need me as much, A, and I think was some of that there is a little sense of, at least for me, there's also some level of sadness with that.
That they're growing up. That the little things they don't need you for any more. It's bittersweet that day, at least for me, we wake up and you recognize that my patience is not being tried as much because they don't need me as much anymore. The first signs that they're growing into themselves and they're like, "Well, I don't need you to get me milk anymore. I can do it on my own, or I can brush my teeth on my own."
All of those little things that day in and day out are things that probably are quite trying, but when you look back over it, you go, "Wow, I miss those moments," because everything with parenting, it is a stage and if you can just weather that storm, the next stage, I don't know if it gets easier, it's different. It's a different set of challenges. That might be easier or less easy for you depending on what that challenge could be.
I've always thought of myself as being a pretty patient guy. Especially when they were younger and crying about diapers and stuff, because they can't control that, but I will say as I've gotten older, as they got older, the patience is a little bit less just because you have, again, this external stresses and then the constant, "Can you tie my shoelace? Can I do this? What about that? Is it dessert time? Can I watch a movie?" It just piles up. If you can manage your patience level, I think that is also a virtue of being a good father. I'm not saying that you have to have it to be a good father, but it certainly helps everybody because your stress level is a little bit lower if you can be patient and the kids is as well.
Jim: I think that's definitely a foundation. Being a good dad is obviously in the eye of the beholder. As I said earlier, we're not experts, but we hope we gave you some ideas, some possible answers about what it means to be a good father, and what you can do to aim for this in your parenting life. If you'd like to support the podcast and hear more discussions about fatherhood, please subscribe and drop us a review. If you have any questions, hit us up on the Facebook page facebook.com/papaestfatigue. Don't forget to head over to the website papaestfatigue.club and pick up some merch. Thanks for listening
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