I decided to post about Fathers Day after Father’s Day because we are not just Fathers for one day.

I often do this on people’s Birthdays by sending them the card a few days after and mentioning that now their birthday is over, I hope they had a great day but celebrating a life is everyday.  I suppose I also do it so they will remember my card and not all the cards they go on their birthday or more importantly not all the Facebook messages they go from 200 half friends: by the way if you missed my Facebook birthday message it is because I don’t send them.

I had my opinion changed a few years ago about cards and present which you can read on my post Better Experience the Presents. In line with this I got a great card from my kids on Father’s Day but didn’t quite understand the ‘Grumpy Old Man’ stubby holder and mug!!

Dad as a Teenager

Dad – always smiling

I think as Fathers we always think we could be doing a better job. I have the greatest cure for that type of thinking. I think about what I was doing as a kid and how my parents didn’t know half of what I got up to and in any case I lied, often only by omission, but a lie nevertheless. I realise that our kids are giving us the half truths all the time so as a parent they are just glad we don’t know what they are really getting up to, so being a good Dad is not finding out, I reckon. And, when you do, don’t be to harsh about it just because you never got caught when you were a kid!

After all out job is pretty simple. Keep them fed, clothed, sheltered and at school and most of all let them know they can be happy in a pretty flawed world.

I suppose being a Dad is as much about what we learned being a kid. I want to be like my Dad or I don’t want to be like my Dad, either way we learned something.

I wrote a lot about getting over, and rewriting the past in my post ‘Better at Time Machines‘ if you are interested.  One thing I do know, doesn’t matter about your past, it is how you look at today, and perhaps tomorrow that counts.  I think this is where we make the choice to be happy.

I also think that our Dads are a great influence, good or bad.

I was lucky, mine was all good.  I think the silent majority get to look back at their childhood and say it was pretty good.  I noticed the other day on Facebook a mate in his late 50s posted something about his Dad who had died when he was 21 years old – the influence of Dad’s is for life – and I think just as much if not more so after their death.

I once was attempting to explain this to my kids and did it with the following anecdote (I think I may have posted this before but I am of the age that if I tell the kids I can’t remember because I am getting old, unfortunately they believe me! – just found it in my post ‘Better Happy Posts‘ if you are interested – but here it is again anyway):

The other day I was trying to explain to the kids what were the important things in life and knowing the ‘value’ of something. I said I would be happy to have no job, no house, no possessions except the clothes I was wearing and perhaps a tooth brush in my back pocket. I would give it all away, all my ‘things’ to spend 1 minute with my Dad. I told then if I could do this, I would, with no regrets. I miss him as much today as I did all those years ago. I now attempt to honour him by living a life that would make him proud…. and sometimes when I falter, I know he would understand, forgive me and know (which is all he ever expected on any of us) I am doing my best. I love my Dad and I miss him.

I know we often try as Dads to be all things, especially attempting to teach our kids about our mistakes so they don’t repeat them.  We just have to remember for them it isn’t a repeat it is a first time discovery!  I suppose we just gotta let it happen and hope for the best – the odds are in our favour that they will make it.

Bob Kearney (see my post ‘Better with Bob‘) once said to me that he had a boring Granfather and in his old age he didn’t want to be a boring Grandfather; but, more important than being interesting was being interested.  I think that’s what our kids really only ever want anyway.

So now that Fathers Day is over and we have received all the accolades (and hopefully those of you with young kids great paintings of things that you had to have explained to you – PS keep these in the hidden kids 21 embarrassment file!) lets think about making our days as Dads count a bit more, lets be interested.

I know in being a better man, I MUST be a better Dad.