We all like to think of ourselves as special or extraordinary in some ways. Not fun to be an average Joe, or be like “everyone else”. But recently as I think of who I am as a husband and a father to two boys, I’m as typical as they get. I’m the financial breadwinner, I focus most of my weekdays on work, I find my kids too hard to handle to spend enough dedicated time with them, I push family away so I can focus on doing my own stuff. I let my wife focus on building the family, keeping the house clean and organised, and planning for the kids.
If one day I get one of those World’s Best Dad mugs, I cannot think of a single reason why I deserve it over other dads. I don’t think I’m a particularly bad father, but not a particularly great one too. If at my eulogy, my wife says that I had been a great husband, I also can’t think of a good reason why.
I should do better. I should make my family feel proud and thankful that they have me. What do I wanna be good at, as a husband and father?
Being present
I recently watched a random YouTube video where Blake Lively called Ryan Reynold’s the most present father, and how he would always rush home to spend time with family even after a crazy day at work. I would love my family to think of me like that one day–that I was the most present father and husband, that I would dedicate 100% focus into all the little small things. Even if it’s for a short while every day, I have to be more present
Passing wisdom and knowledge
I wanna be the kind of father that spends enough effort teaching my kids how it’s like to be a good person (even if I’m not one myself), and to be wise (again, even if I may not be). Give them the tools that they need to grow as someone 10x better than me. I would like to share more things that I learn with Shanna and have more intellectual conversation without making her feel inferior or insecure as she always does. As a family we should always be growing and learning from each other
Building things
I wanna do so many passion projects with my kids as they grow and get curious about things. I hope to have solved the money problem before they become teenagers, so I can spend as much time developing their curiosities and experiment on things, and build really cool stuff together!