I felt the need to do a make-up post since I had missed Friday. This make up post is about my fears regarding Fatterhood....I mean...fatherhood. Today, my aunt sent Elizabeth a gift. It was a very cute little pink piggy bank. In the box she sent the following poem:
A careful man I ought to be,
A little lady follows me.
I do not dare to go astray,
For fear she'll go the selfsame way.
Not once can I escape her eyes;
Whate'er she sees me do she tries.
Like me she says she's going to be,
that little lady who follows me.
I must remember as I go
Through summer sun and winter snow,
I'm molding for the years to be,
that little lady who follows me.
WHAT THE HELL?! Don't get me wrong, it is a lovely poem and it is even true I guess, but way to freak a guy out! The whole point of this blog is that I don't intend on really changing my life all that much and I get a reminder in the mail that if I don't change that I might raise an alcoholic/serial killer. Dear lord. This of course has got me thinking a lot. To be fair, my mission was rather doomed from the beginning. To think that your life won't change with the introduction of a child is just absurd. But that amount of change is correlated to the type of life you lead pre-baby. My wife and I are total home bodies. I travel for work and my wife work about 900 hours a week, so by the time Friday night rolls around going out and painting the town red seems like as much fun as eating our supper out of Elizabeth's dirty diaper. But a once or twice a month, we used to drag ourselves out and get 3 sheets to the wind and stay up late and live like normal 20-something-year olds. So not a whole lot really is changing on our end to be honest. But that dang poem really drove the point home, there is now a little gremlin that watches EVERYTHING that we do and is constantly learning. Terrifying...
So what do I have to bring to the table as far as raising my daughter is concerned? Not much from what I can see. Recently I received a message from a friend of my late mother saying that she "really enjoyed the blog" but that she thinks that I should change the name from Fatterhood because I "shouldn't have such a low opinion" of myself. I will explain it to you all the same way I explained it to her. I decided upon the name Fatterhood because I need to bring myself down. I am the luckiest son of a bitch that you will ever meet! I am 5 foot 8, 236lbs, average looks (I guess), been told that I am above average intelligence and that I am "charming" and "witty", but I have done very little right in my life, but somehow I have managed to fail upwards and Roger Rabbit myself into a great relationship/marriage, a nice house out in the country, a job that is very rewarding and has decent pay, amazing friends that are much more like family than friends, and now a beautiful and healthy baby girl. Have I worked hard for these things? Sure. I guess. But I have waaaaay better things and people in my life than I feel I truly deserve. I could never give advice to another person on how to obtain any of these things. "I drag myself through the dirt just to feel a little closer to the ground because I always got my head up in the clouds".
So back to my point. What do I have to pass on to my daughter? I guess she can just plan on doing the opposite of everything I tell her. Or better yet, just ALWAYS listen to her mother, but that has its drawbacks as well. My wife and I have always agreed that she is very book smart and I have always been better about keeping my fingers on the pulse of the real world. For instance, my wife didn't quite realize why she couldn't do an internet search for "Cheap wood, free delivery" while looking for wood for our wood burning furnace...yeah. She is by no means stupid, but didn't stop and think of what type of pages might come up if you type that in to a search engine. I, on the other hand, have been out-mathed by a 3rd grader. I think/hope between the two of us that we can raise a smart, well adjusted, and street wise human being. But are two parents the only answer?
I was raised by a single mom. She worked very hard to give me all of the advantages that she never had. For most of my younger years, she worked 2 or 3 jobs just so that I could go to a private school. She sold plasma so that I could have Christmas presents. Even though money was tight, she paid to put my in Cub/Boy Scouts so that I could have male role models. She also had a very strange quirk, every year for Christmas she insisted on getting me a board game. That's all fine and good, but I was an only child, with a single parent who worked a lot. Think that one through for a bit. In case you are wondering, Battleship really sucks when you play it by yourself. I still have a hatred of board games to this day, but I have sidetracked myself. Anyways, my Ma taught be one of the greatest parenting lessons that I have ever learned, which simply put, is sacrifice. The example that I use is when I was very little, my extremely independent mother couldn't afford any Christmas presents. I had food, housing, clothing, love, etc. but try explaining that to a small child. Anyways, even though it killed her, she bit the bullet and asked for help from Toys for Tots just so that I could have a gift to unwrap at Christmas. That might not seem like a lot to someone that never met my mother, but asking for a "hand-out" is something that my Ma would never do...unless it came to me. She taught me, that being a parent is about setting aside one's pride or comfort and making sure that your child is safe, happy, fed, clothed, etc.
So, I guess with that type of advice in hand and with my wife's intelligence and guidance, I am pretty sure we won't raise a serial killer. I did receive some pretty good advice from my father-in-law. Him and I have almost absolutely nothing in common except for our love of Pabst Blue Ribbon, cigars, the Milwaukee Brewers, and Meatloaf (the food and the musical artist), but we have always had respect for each other's differences. But while he was visiting us at the hospital and meeting Elizabeth for the first time, he shook my hand and said "Now your only job is to keep her off the pole.". He apparently didn't like my response of "As long as she is only doing it to pay for college". He put 3 kids through college and didn't seem to find it as funny as I did.
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| You have to teach the kids about the Battle of Hoth early... |
Don't be afraid to share this blog with your friends or family and keep the comments coming. If you have any questions or ideas for a blog theme, hit me up. As always, Cheers!
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