Ten Things I've Learned as a Dad
It's taken ten years!
This past weekend, the oldest of my two children turned ten years old.
This is a monumental birthday for him, of course—double digits!—and an absolutely rad age to be. Having already had a party for him and his closest council of bros the prior weekend, his requests for the day itself were simple, straightforward and awesome: Waffle House for breakfast, and Jet’s Pizza for dinner. (A man of refined tastes.) He got some great gifts, had a Squirtle-themed birthday cake, and generally embraced the ethos of Guys Bein Dudes.
Of course, this birthday marked a milestone for me, too—it marked a decade of my being a Dad in the literal sense, and not just in the “wears unfashionable sneakers and likes to read books about shipwrecks” sense. I’ve been responsible for at least one person’s survival, wellbeing and development for ten years now.
That kinda makes me a parenting expert, right?
[pause for laughter]
No, of course it doesn’t. There’s no such thing as a parenting expert, and anyone who tells you otherwise is at best a fool and at worst a liar. Every child is different, and to suggest that there’s a single manual for success in raising them is ludicrous. I’m not even an expert at raising these two—seriously, just ask them—and I’m certainly not in a position to weigh in on how to raise someone else’s kid.
That said, I have picked up a few tips along the way.
To mark the end of my first decade of parenting, allow me to share Ten Things I’ve Learned as a Dad.
1. Falling over is great comedy
I mean, okay. I knew this one before I was a Dad. In architecture school, my favorite gag was to grab an old study model, walk into the other studio room late at night right before a deadline, and start to proudly announce to my bleary-eyed classmates that I’d finished my project, only to trip, fall, and smash it, Chris Farley-style. I have always understood the comedic power of falling over.
But kids? Kids LOVE when you fall over. It can reset almost any situation.
In Mad Men, Don Draper famously noted “if you don’t like what’s being said, change the conversation”, and while he was talking about selling cigarettes, it also applies to defusing a playground tantrum by pretending to get laid out by a kid on a swing.
2. Do not accept any board books with bad rhyme structure
When the kids were little, we’d invariably read the same handful of books at bedtime night after night, week after week. Of course, this meant that I had books that I preferred, and books that I absolutely reviled—mostly because they wouldn’t let me settle into an automatic cadence.
A book with a good rhyme structure, though? That’s worth its weight in gold. I could recite Llama Llama Red Pajama in my sleep, and I’m pretty sure I actually did pass out in the middle of reading it during some sleep regressions. (No one noticed.)
3. They will know if you try to sneak vegetables into things
What I said up top about parenting “experts”? This goes double for the people who think that you can sneak nutrition by kids: it’s all lies!
I once tried to mix roasted butternut squash into a tray of macaroni and cheese, thinking I’d secretly add a little fiber and some vitamins to a household favorite dish. For two whole years after this, every time I made macaroni and cheese—which was a lot, mind you, I have kids—my daughter would warily inquire “is it homemade?” before being reassured that no, it is not.
Meanwhile, they’ll happily eat vegetables out in the open. They just didn’t like me ruining the Kraft Mac.
4. Try to use the same swear words as your co-parent
Ideally, this bullet point would be “don’t swear in front of your kids”.
[Red from Shawshank voice] I wish I could tell you that I was good at that. I wish I could tell you that I fought the good fight, and kept it to “aw shucks” and “fiddlesticks” when driving…
Anyways, they will hear you swearing, even if you only do it exceedingly-rarely, and they will repeat it at an inopportune time. The most important thing you can do to prepare for this is to not have a profane vocabulary distinct from your spouse/co-parent, because you need plausible deniability as to who they picked that up from.
5. No one has ever gotten mad about breakfast for dinner
You can do it whenever you want! Everyone will be happy.
You could even do it tonight.
6. Always take a bunch of napkins
Again, I’d like for this point to be something more respectable. In an ideal world, I would recommend assembling a perfect clean-up kit like one of those everything-is-always-under-control parenting influencers probably have, with organic wipes, stain sticks, handheld vacuums and whatnot.
Those people are not real, however, and all I can tell you is that it’s perfectly legal and acceptable to take an inch-thick stack of napkins from Starbucks or Chipotle or wherever and shove them in your bag or car console.
You may not need them today, but when you do need them, you’ll need all of them.
7. Keep a bunch of change on you
We are increasingly headed toward a cashless society. Many restaurants, stadiums and other venues have gone electronic-payment-only. Heck, the US Treasury is discontinuing pennies! I’ve long since adapted to this reality, too. If you were to snatch my wallet, you’d be lucky to get away with anything more than a handful of receipts and a ten-year old MetroCard.
Still, I know damn well that I’d better not walk into a science center, children’s museum or ostensibly-educational tourist trap without at least fifty-one cents change per kid, because there is going to be one of those penny-smashing machines, and I’m gonna end up spending way more if we have to go into the gift shop to get change.
8. Never, ever give multiple choices to multiple children at the same time
If it were a true coin-flip scenario, there’s a 50-50 chance that they will choose the same thing. It is not a true coin-flip scenario, and there is a 100% chance they will stake out opposing sides. It will go something like this:
“Do you guys want to have hot dogs or pizza tonight?”
[simultaneously] “Hot dogs!” “Pizza!”
[sudden devolution into fierce argument that could only be solved if Costco hadn’t closed five minutes ago]
9. If a toy flies, it is going to end up in a tree.
There’s no advice here. It’s just a warning.
Last year, one of my son’s friends gave him a rocket that looked like this for his birthday.
We launched it a half-dozen times, and then it got permanently lodged forty feet up in an elm tree. It has been a year; we have had multiple destructive wind storms since then. It is still in the tree.
Of course, I felt so bad for him right after it happened that I ordered a replacement.
You didn’t launch it near the same tree, did y—
Don’t be ridiculous.
It’s stuck in a completely different tree.
Besides, it wasn’t up to me. I could’ve launched this thing from the middle of the Sahara Desert or the Antarctic ice shelf and it would’ve somehow found its way into a tree.
10. You’re going to mess up a bunch. It’s okay.
The only adage I really swear by as a parent comes not from a doctor, a teacher or a child psychologist, but from boxer Mike Tyson.
“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.”
Kids are going to tear up your best-laid plans, defy your well-intentioned rules and make a mockery of your what-to-expect expectations on a daily if not hourly basis, and you just have to roll with it and do your best. It won’t be perfect—it probably won’t even be close—but if you’re trying, that’s probably going to be good enough.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to grab two dozen napkins from my glovebox.
I knew letting them have smoothies back there was a bad idea.
—Scott Hines (@actioncookbook)
A few previous parenting pieces from the ACBN archives:
Scott Hines
Scott Hines
Scott Hines
