You can learn a lot from a 9-year-old. The other day Beau was explaining to me that a Brontosaurus was never really a thing. Which blew my mind because the Brontosauras was my favorite dinosaur when I was a kid. But I did some research and Beau is right: apparently the guy who “discovered” the Brontosaurus actually put the head of a Camarasaurus on the body of an Apatosaurus and claimed it was a brand new species he dubbed “Brontosauraus,” meaning “thunder lizard.” The name was too cool to go away even after scientists found and corrected the mistaken identity.
So the Brontosaurus never existed, even though the false image lives on so vividly in our minds.
I mention this because with Father’s Day coming up I’ve been thinking a lot about what my boys are teaching me—about the world and about myself.
I’m realizing this image we have in our minds of being the perfect parent for our kids is just like that Brontosauraus; it never existed in the first place.
This parenting thing is a moving target. These little people are constantly changing, which means we as parents must constantly ”up our game” to stay ahead of them. Every few years is a different stage with new situations and issues.
I was pretty good at diapers and bottles. And the twos weren’t terrible at all for me. Having teenage boys (in a few short years) doesn’t intimidate me a bit. But I’m straight struggling with these tween years.
And it doesn’t help the pressure I put on myself when the “family life” guy who writes a dad blog can’t even figure his own kids out. But that’s just my own stinking thinking.
The truth is we can’t be—and never were meant to be—perfect for our kids. Because we’re not perfect people to begin with.
And that’s okay, as long as we’re learning.
All we can do is the best we can with the information we have at the time.
I can’t parent my 11-year-old the same way I did at 5 and 7. And my reactions to some tough situations at home recently have not been ideal. So lately I feel like I’m failing more than I’m winning.
But at least I can honestly say I’m doing my best and trying to do a little better everyday. One day at a time.
A friend of mine texted me a screenshot the other day. It was a picture of Snoopy with a quote that said “When you can’t control what is happening around you, challenge yourself to control the way in which you respond. That is where your true power lies.”
Now that’s a clever dog.
I need to do better at responding because I want more than anything to model appropriate behavior and responses, ESPECIALLY as my little guys approach middle school.
It helps when I realize that in this case true power also lies in recognizing that God is still fathering me as I’m fathering my boys. I have a lot more to learn, but He isn’t done with me yet.
Subconsciously, I wonder if the fact that my oldest will be in sixth grade next year is messing with me a little bit too. Sixth grade was my worst year emotionally. So watching my son walk into that world is not fun for me because it brings up a lot of dormant fear. But it’s not fair for me to project that onto Luke and I definitely don’t want to parent out of fear.
I want to appear confident so Luke feels confident. In that way, we’re sort of walking through this together and in some weird way I’m parenting my inner sixth grade self (who still feels scared sometimes) at the same time I’m parenting Luke.
So it turns out I’m learning a lot from my 11-year-old, too—about myself, which I can only hope is exactly what he needs in the long run.
Maybe that makes me perfectly imperfect after all.