Where do we start? Being a great husband and father is not easy. The challenges are plentiful and involve balancing all of life's demands and making the best of what life gives you.
Balancing our Careers and the Needs of our family
As I've mentioned before, as men we have a need to compete and succeed and provide a comfortable life for our families. Many of us are forced to spend most of our time away from our families in order to do that. The key is to make the best of the time we have available. As a father, figure out what your child's interests are and make an effort to spend time every month doing the things that they enjoy. If you have multiple children, try to give each one a special day every month on which they get to do something of their choice (go to a favorite park, eat a favorite meal, play a favorite game, etc). If your kids are involved in sports or other extracurricular activities, make sure you make it to at least one of their competitions every week. If they play pretty frequently, try to go more often. Make sure your children know that you understand what is important to them and that you want to be a part of their lives instead of making them feel like they have to somehow fit themselves into your busy work schedule.
Obviously your spouse needs some of your time also. Make sure you and your wife both understand what the expectations are for how much time you need together (just the two of you). All couples are different. If you agree that once per month is enough, make it something special like dinner together at a place that has some significance to both of you. Maybe the place you went on your first date, or somewhere you frequented before you had children. Also, small romantic gestures for your wife during the week, or when they're unexpected will go a long way to help allay the need to make large gestures when things aren't going so well. Some ideas include making her favorite breakfast for her on Sunday morning (or Tuesday morning), showing up with flowers for no reason, or making sure her car is filled with gas any time you drive it. This way she doesn't have to stop to fill up while she has the kids with her. True story...The Nurturing One dislikes stopping for gas with the baby in the car so much that she once ran out of gas. Luckily, she was about 100 feet from a gas station and right behind her was a football mom driving a large SUV full of varsity high school football players. The football mom swiftly sent those boys to push The Nurturing One, Miracle Boy, and their car into the gas station so she could fill up. The football players couldn't have been nicer about the whole thing (and refused any payment or reward). God was truly watching out for The Nurturing One and Miracle Boy that day. I now make sure her car always has at least a half a tank of gas in it and if it doesn't I run up to the gas station and fill it.
Everyone needs time for themselves too. The challenge is to balance the time we have available between work, family, and ourselves. One thing I find works well is that I try to do the things I want to do during my lunch break from work. This usually involves either going to the gym or eating at a place where I can also write in this blog. Because I work a good distance from where we live, going home to see the family is not really an option. I find getting in my "me time" during this hour works out well for everyone. I am not taking away from time with the family but I am getting to do some of the things I enjoy.
Miracle Boy just started going to a daycare two days a week. The daycare is located close enough to where I work that I can go and play with him during my lunch break. I've been able to do that both days he has been there, and plan to continue to do so. I consider being able to visit Miracle Boy during my lunch break to be "me time", because there's nothing I'd rather be doing. The daycare is a great option for us right now because I would not otherwise be able to see him during the day, and it allows my wife to work two days a week. One thing I find interesting is that the coordinator at the daycare mentioned to my wife how great she thinks it is that I go there during the day to see him. She said it's a really rare occasion that they see fathers doing this. If I could I would spend every waking hour with Miracle Boy. The last thing I would want is for there to be any doubt in my son's mind about how important he is to me and how much I love him. I may be going overboard with this sentiment, but it also sounds like a lot of fathers out there could step up their game in the fatherhood department.
As Miracle Boy gets older I look forward to including him in more of the things I like to do...instead of going to the gym or for a run on my own, we could go outside to a park and kick a soccer ball around or I could take him on the golf course with me and he can ride in the golf cart. We can take bike rides together. I may not get the same quality workout, but as he gets older he'll speed up and I'll slow down. The point is to do these things together and find a great balance of the things we love in life.
Helping with Bed-Time Routine
The most recent challenge I've been dealing with is the fact that I am having a hard time helping to put Miracle Boy to sleep. As he starts to get really sleepy, Miracle Boy realizes it and starts to fight it by being playful with whomever is trying to put him down. I was having a real hard time not responding in an equally playful manner. I feel like I don't get enough quality time with him, so any time he wants to play I want to play with him...(not hold him so tight that he cant squirm around in my arms and force him to eat his bottle and fall asleep). I was feeling like our time together was so precious that I did not want to make him unhappy in any way. The result was that my wife would ultimately have to put him down every night. Well...I took advantage of that for about a week, and then realized I wasn't being fair to my wife. I'm happy to announce that since I started writing this post I've worked through that issue, and with a little advice from my wife I have learned to just be stern enough to get him to stop trying to play, and I've gotten him to sleep on my own three times in a row now. Babies need their sleep, and he is much happier when he has good rest, so it is in the best interest of the whole family.
Getting Funny Looks from the Other Parents
The Nurturing One often works on Saturdays. We both hate that she has to do that, but it is what it is right now, and we make the best of it. She's off by 3pm, and we have the rest of the afternoon together. In any case, Miracle Boy and I get to spend the day together! I always feel like I get a lot of funny looks because I am a father alone with an infant. I'm not sure about the exact reason for the looks, but I think it has a lot to do with the moms wishing their husbands would be willing to spend the day alone with their baby, and the dads getting mad at me b/c they know their wives are going to say "If that guy can do it, why can't you?" Sorry if I'm getting anyone in trouble out there, but the fact is...you can do it, you just have to want to.
Forgetting about our Most Important Assets
Part of being a great husband and father is providing a safe and secure life for our families. I was talking to a REALLY rich guy I know recently. He was telling me how the recession was affecting him financially and how he was going to do whatever it took to protect his most valuable assets. While he was talking about this, I knew in the back of my mind that his relationship with his wife was not very strong. They had been fighting a lot, and there was talk about splitting up. What I didn't tell him, but will the next time I see him, is that his wife and children are his most vaulable assets. The sooner he starts treating them like it, and doing whatever it takes to protect his marriage, the sooner everything else in the rest of his life will either rectify itself, or he will realize that financial assets are not the most important assets we possess, and he and his wife will figure out together that they don't need to be millionaires to be rich.
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