Dad goals

Hello all,

                I have another post in mind, but before I finish that one up I figured I would try to get a more humorous one up here. As I mentioned before in an earlier post, I had started what I referred to as a pre-baby book for Elizabeth. Back in March I had started to write her an entry with my “dad goals” in it, but stopped as I thought that perhaps some of my dad goals would be gender specific. As it turns out, boy or girl most of my goals remained the same. I decided to finish up that entry on here instead.

   1)      Take her to a concert.- I started going to concerts when I was 12 or 13. I’ve been to hundreds of shows and have seen hundreds of bands. I have slowed down on concerts over the last few years, but I still make it to a few every year. At one of the last concerts that I went to, I saw a dad and his son (I am terrible at guessing g ages, but the kid appeared to be no older than 10) making their way through the mosh pit. The kid’s dad had his arms squared up around his son and they were making their way to the very front by the stage. It was so cool to see.

   2)      I want to raise a nerd.- This may be a tall order as Elizabeth’s mother is not a nerd at all. I am unsure how I will accomplish this and to be honest, I won’t stop loving her even if she hates Star Wars. Although it might be harder to love her.

    3)      I actually want to raise a wise cracking smart ass.- I know… I will probably regret writing that once she is a teenager, but it is a trait that seems to run in my family. We are all a bunch of smart asses and for the most part we are all pessimists with a great sense of humor. I want that for my little Ewok as well. Not the pessimism, but the sense of humor.

    4)      I want to make her learn the value of hard work.- It will never happen, but if I ever did become a billionaire, I would still make Elizabeth work for her money. I am not a classist, but there is something to be learned from a hard day’s work. I worked and scrimped and saved for my 1^st car when I was 16. I bought a rusted out shit box that was 5 years older than I was. I loved that car though, because I earned it. My goal is to spoil the shit out of her without make her ungrateful.

     5)      I don’t want to watch Bubble Guppies.- If you haven’t seen current children’s programming then you are the luckiest bastard ever. My nieces love Bubble Guppies and I find the show a little disturbing. I find 98% of current children’s programming to be vapid and devoid of content and just generally mind numbing. My goal is to make sure that I don’t have to watch any of that bullshit.

    6)      Ditto for music.- I can’t stand any of that Raffie or Wiggles bullshit either. I know I can’t really listen to Rage Against the Machine with a toddler in the car, but I think there is a happy medium to be reached.

     7)      I promise to let her make mistakes.- This can be a tough one for any parent. I’ve learned (ironically enough from my mother allowing me to make so many mistakes) that a person can learn a lot more from making a mistake than they can from having something done for them. I’m not afraid to let her fail if I think a lesson can be learned from it.

I am willing to bet that I will think of many other dad goals as she gets older, but those are the ones that really stick out to me right now. I actually feel really dumb for thinking that any of these would be gender specific at all. Anyways, I will have another post up soon so check back. As usual, I thank you for reading, check out Fatterhood on Facebook and PROST!