Member-only story
How I Botched Father’s Day
A confession and a surrendering of personal parenting success
It’s the day after Father’s Day. And as I reflect on yesterday, I’m realizing something…
I wasn’t any less of a mediocre dad on Father’s Day than I am on any other day.
Big-picture-wise, yesterday was nice. There were no huge catastrophes. For sure, there were some unfortunate things that happened (as you’ll soon see), but it could’ve been a lot worse.
For the sake of this essay, I’m going with this premise: the thing that brings our kids the most joy (particularly when they’re my daughter’s age — 5) is for us to be present and attentive to them. That’s what the parenting books and the high priests and priestesses of parenting bloggers have told me, so I’m going with it (we’ll get into this later)…
But first, walk with me…
A quick play-by-play
I woke up to Rory at 6:30 am giving me a hand-crafted, folded, and stapled card (with the family and the dog framed in a big heart, naturally). At this stage, she loves giving gifts as much as she does getting them, so she’s been itching for a week to hand it over.
