Fatherhood. You kind of have to Taste it.

I work at a brewery. In a beer hall. At least 5 times every shift, I will be trying to explain the flavor profile of a beer to a visitor. After about 90 seconds of an attempt if I still see the bewilderment and confusion on their face, I usually just pour them a sample.

Inevitably, as soon as they taste it, the cartoon light bulb above their head lights up. They get it. Because they tasted it too.

For me, Fatherhood is the same way.

I spent most of my childhood, I looked at my father with that same bewilderment and confusion. Why was he always telling me what to do? Why the constant logic? Why does he make this so difficult?

Why?

It was something I didn't learn until I learned what fatherhood meant.

Fatherhood isn't about making a child. Children do that all the time. In many ways I was still a child when I had a child. It took time to learn how to be a father. It took work.

Every rough draft of a paper I have ever written has been mostly torn to shreds. Rightfully so. Even in grade school and high school I could hastily slap a research paper together that was good enough to pass. But it wasn't good.

I remember the dread of walking down the stairs with my 3.5 inch floppy disk (old alert!) to print my paper off in my father's office. Sometimes I would try and rush so I could just print it off without him knowing. Because if I could, I wouldn't have to revise.

But there was always a lack of paper or some cosmic event that brought him into the room. He'd see the words on the screen or pick up a page from the printer. Immediately my dreams of half ass-ing my way through it were dashed.

I hated it. I knew that the paper was good enough. He knew it wasn't good. So the battle would begin.

My teenage angst against his unwavering expectation to actually do my best.

We'd argue. I'd pout or use what I perceived was a rapier like wit. (It wasn't). And after an hour or two, we'd print out a vastly superior paper. It wasn't always an A. Mostly because I would in my stubbornness resist enough that I shot myself in the grade book. But it was better. 

I used to hate those workshop sessions. But I never once considered that my father might too.

They weren't fun. But they were necessary. Because I could do better.

I never once thought he might hate the battle as much as I. 

When my son and daughter were born, I was a Dad. But not yet a Father. It took me a long time to learn that a big part of being a Father is doing things that you don't necessarily want to do. Things that aren't always fun. Like discipline. Like consequences. Like you know, actual parenting.

I'm a better Father today than I was when my children were born. I will be a better Father years from now. It is the hardest job I have ever had because it is the most important.

Thank you Dad for doing the things you might not have wanted to do. Thank you for pushing me to do more than just enough. Thank you for helping me see that being a Father is like jumping out of an airplane trying to catch a falling man and put a parachute on them while they try and stop you.

We only get so much time to make a difference. To get the parachute on. It's a fight. Often the person falling refuses to acknowledge the help. But it's our job.

Thank you Alan Winegarden for showing how to do it.

 I could never truly understand until I tasted it myself.

PS - thanks again for not red carding me when I told you that my obviously late slide tackle and subsequent yellow card was BS. Even if you can't remember being a ref. ;)