As a new parent I have thought long and hard about what makes one a good parent. There are many places to look to see examples of good parenting and bad parenting.
Television could be the place to search. TV infiltrates our minds every day so maybe there are grains of truth and inspiration in there. Lost was a great show and Jack Shephard seemed like a pretty cool guy, but all his dad seemed to teach him was how to be an alcoholic, secret family having, ghost. George Bluth from Arrested Development was a great role model for his son Michael, if learning to embezzle money is something you want to pass on to your son. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were my role models as a boy, but their father seems to be absent and that isn't exactly the route I want to take.
While wearing no pants and beating people to death with nunchucks sounds rad to a 10 year old, it is not exactly what I aspire for my kids.
I adore movies, so that is naturally the first place I look. Problem is there aren't a whole lot of good examples of fatherhood in cinema. Darth Vader seems to handle discipline a little roughly by cutting off his son's hand. Don Vito Corleone pushes his son, Michael, into the mafia. Brian Madison teaches his son, Billy, few life lessons by bribing everyone Billy comes into contact with. Mr. Parker raises his son, Ralphie, to say THE word, the big one, the queen-mother of dirty words, the F-dash-dash-dash word and then had the audacity to punish Ralphie for saying it. So, clearly movies are not the place to find inspiration for fatherhood.
Also, who wants their kid to wear glasses?
Okay, so television and movies offer little help but who really thought they would? TV is “the opiate of the masses” and movies spawned creatures like Michael Bay so we shouldn’t expect much from them. Books however are like tv for the elite, movies for the educated. Well, apparently the elite hates dad. Narnia? Dad sends the kids off to live in the country to live with a creepy professor. Harry Potter? Dad is dead and actually kind of seemed like a creep when he was alive. Into The Wild? Dad incorporates everything the son hates. Where the Red Fern Grows? Dad can’t even buy his son a dog.
“Son, I love you, but not this much.”
I guess I should have known media was not the place to look for parental guidance. So, where should I look. I guess one’s parents would be another good idea in theory. Not in MY theory though. My theory is no matter how wonderful you parents are they should not be one of the main places you look to for guidance in parenting. This is not a diss to my parents or anyone else’s parents. My mom and dad provided a loving home with a rather nice mixture of discipline and fun. I would actually be rather pleased to be a dad similar to my dad. So why is my theory to not totally follow your parents? Because when you or I lay our head down at night we are forced to sit in silence and admit just how strange and screwed up we are. We know every single mistake we have made. We know what we really think about things. We know the things we won’t tell anyone else, like the fact that I watched the entire Sex and the City series. Knowing that about myself means that I know that some how the lesson my dad taught me when I was twelve about how real men do not need cuss words to get their point across eventually lead to me dating a girl who would not let me hang out with my cousin because she thought I had a crush on her. Those two things aren’t linked in anyway, but they are both part of my story and you can’t personally separate things in a story. Every action and decision is linked to the next. Our mistakes aren’t truly our parents fault, they are our fault, but we can’t separate the two. So, even if your parents are literally the best parents in the world you still have to read a parenting book or two just to try and avoid the few weird things you grew up doing.
At this stage in my life I had a very strong crush on Penny from Inspector Gadget. If you ever have a crush on a cartoon character it means you might need to question you ability to parent.
TV, movies, book, and even one’s own parents are out. The only place left, and I believe the right place, to look is other families. I have been doing this since my wife got pregnant, so for about 17 months now, and I have discovered something interesting. Cool parents suck. Originally my goal was to teach my children about all the things in the world that I thought were simply too amazing to not tell a child about. Phish, The Beatles, Lord of the Rings, baseball, not having a mullet. The essentials! But parents who do that fail. They might be cool by not giving in to the traditional family values but they will fail. If you grow your hair long, smoke a little, drink a little, watch R rated movies with you children, and teach your kids about how if you press play on Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon at the third roar of the lion then it matches up perfectly to The Wizard of Oz you will be a cool parent. For a while you kid will be a cool kid. But, eventually your child, like all children, will want to rebel. Grow shaggy hair? No, his parents do that. Smoking? No, his parents do that. Get drunk? No, his parents do that. Watch American Pie: Band Camp 18? No, his parents do that. Smoke a little weed? No, apparently his parents used to do that. With the typical rebellious options gone your child must now turn to something like crack, Satan worship, going to 3rd base with the pet bunny, or something truly horrible like listing the Culture Club as their favorite band.
Most likely not receiving any, “#1 Dad” coffee mugs.
So, if cool parents fail that must mean non-cool parents succeed. In my experience this is true more than it is not. If you can somehow accept that you are now a dad and that is way more important than if you see your favorite band in concert every summer you are now on the path to greatness. You know whose children grow up awesome? The Duggars from 18 Kids and Counting. Home school kids. Amish kids. Now yes occasionally they may have problems socially. Carrying on a conversation with a home school kid may sometimes be like talking to a boring, religious, slice of watermelon. But, when said child grows up and decides to rebel the do it by reading a Rob Bell book or listening to a Christian rock album.
Now, I don’t want to home school, I don’t want 18 kids, and I don’t want a chin strap beard. But, I think I can be dorky for my children’s sake. I can avoid keeping up with the latest trends in music and clothes. I can avoid watching inappropriate movies. I can avoid eating too much candy because that will give me a sugar rush, and that might just be a sin. Who really knows? I am totally willing to dork it up so when my kids rebel they can rebel to something that would be acceptable anyways.
Plus, if we are just being honest, dorking it up won’t probably take much effort. Anyone who has a Lord of the Rings bookend in their office isn’t exactly screaming “James Dean” anyways.
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