A Fathers, Father

I work in the same office as my father. We are in a similar business line and sometimes we work on projects together but most of the time we don't, it's just sharing information. I enjoy getting to see my father almost every day. I get to fill him in on how the grandkids are doing and sometimes after school they come up to the office and he gets to play with them. They make crafts, draw, makes copies and get to go the vending machine for snacks.

We don't always talk about business, in fact we have a lot of good conversations around life. However one day my father asked me a question that shook my very core. He asked me "How many of the kids you graduated high school with have become more successful than their parents?". See I went to a private school where a large number of the other kids came from families with both big companies and big money. I know my father well and i know that one of the most important things to him is money. Don't get me wrong he's not Scrooge McDuck out there counting his dollars and hoarding them just so he has more. For him it's safety and security he just wants to make sure he won't go without, and I get it. I'm going through a rough patch in business at the moment and wouldn't mind having a little more safety. Although the question made me feel a lot of shame. I know I'm not where he was at the same age.

See growing up my father wasn't around much when i was younger. He worked a lot late hours and left for work early in the mornings. The only way that i got to see him was lying about having to get to school early for extra help. You read that correctly i lied about needing to go in to school early just because if i had to go early he had to take me. I remember going with him to Starbucks and i would get cider while he got coffee and then we would listen to the Beatles on the short 10 minute ride to school. I understood at that age why he was working so hard, he wanted better for us than what he had. I remember that period of my life and the relationships but not the stuff we had. I didn't care about that, I wanted more time with my dad.

So how am I going to measure my success. I can tell you know that it won't be the same measuring stick. I am the proud father to 4 boys. I love them fiercely and try to be present with them, I don't drop everything i'm doing to go cater to them or do whatever they ask. I am conscious of getting time with them and making sure it's quality 1 on 1 time. What does that look like? i ask them what they want to do. I pay attention to what the certain kid likes. I try to keep my eye out for events or things that they might like to do. For instance i have one kid who loves sports so that might be going to a game with him or keeping him up past his bedtime to watch the end of the world series game. One of them likes video games and action movies so i have to learn to balance what he likes while also being active. I just pay attention to them and listen to them. They just want to talk and tell me stuff and even if I don't understand it I still listen because of how excited they get. Sometimes it's just letting them help me do something even if i know it's going to take 4 times longer to do it because they get so excited with the sense of achievement from helping dad. I'm not mad at my father for any of this it helped me see what was really important.

So at the end of the day after taking care of kids and spending some time putting the house back in recognizable shape after the kids go down. I spend a little time with my wife and then go to bed. Between all the activities, sporting events and trying to keep everything straight with their school, i'm just a very tired dad and i'm hoping to do it a little better than my dad so that my boys might do it a little better than me.

-A tired dad