Pater Familias … because I'm your FATHER!

Beastly Dad

November 10, 2009 · Behavior | Help Pater | School

Are you more of a jerk than you were before parenthood?

School Morning Reveals Loud And Really Unlikable Alter Ego

Jean-Paul Sartre was wrong. Hell is not other people.

Hell is yourself – more specifically, yourself trying to get an obstreperous six-year-old geared-up and out the door on time.

Painful, shameful to think of me, not an hour ago, yelling Girl Child through breakfast, making a bag lunch, finding and deploying socks/purple hightops/jacket/backpack/homework.

This is not to mention writing the note to Mrs. Taylor explaining that GC used her Homework Pass to take a bye on last night’s Language Arts.

Had to write the damned note because we couldn’t find the actual pass.

And let us not forget the three dozen blueberry muffins, hot from the oven, because Tuesdays we send in morning snacks.

But look what's going on here -- I'm deliberately avoiding the subject, because it causes, you know, discomfort. 

This morning I was not the loving but quietly forceful father I would like to be.

No, I was a noisy jerk.

And if, God forbid, you had video and made me watch, I would not like the man onscreen. 

• Why is he so loud?
• Why does he use that horrible tone of voice?
• Why does he keep repeating everything? 
• Omigod, did he just make her cry?
• Why do people like this even have children?

Of course, I also know all the answers, here in reverse order:

• He had the kid because his wife and he wanted to, more than anything, and daddyhood is better than anything, ever.
• Looked square in the face, the crying child would, very likely, start laughing. A little Meryl Streep have we.
• The first three Qs sort of go together. On this kind of morning, I yell pretty much continuously to keep my daughter focused and on track, lest she stop for a lengthy farewell with one of the cats, decide to change clothes, or start a hour-long art project.

Or, like today, she could go upstairs, ostensibly for something else, and redo her hail polish, also dribbling  polish and ruining one of our few presentable washcloths. All in violation of Minerva's nail-polish prohibition from earlier this morning. 

You would have been torqued-off, too. 

But we also have great days, smooth as silk, and get out of here just fine. 

If that happens before ballet, Girl Child wants me to yell, anyway. She says if I don't, we'll be late. 

I don't want to be the jerk who yells. 

Does parenting bring out your jerk within? If you do better, please tell how...

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