Pater Familias … because I'm your FATHER!

See Daddy Run

December 24, 2009 · Activities | Influences | Glad Dad

Do you show off for your kid(s)?

Once In A While, Child Should Cheer For Parent

Apologies to Aesop, but slow and steady does not win. Rabbits dust tortoises.

In a big citizens’ run like last month’s 8K in a suburb next to ours, rabbits win all the age and gender classes, too.

I – slog-jogger tortoise – finish near the bottom in my age group, with a Masters Performance Level Percentage, whatever the hell that is, of 53.4 percent.

Give me credit for crossing the line well ahead of the one and only 80-year-old. But of course he’s really running against Team Dead.   

Screw humility, though. I, Tortoise, triumph in ways – meeting inner goals, pegging the health and vitality meters – that are airy-fairy BS but also true.  Throw in my race t-shirt and big crowd buzz (fitness mamas in lycra, oh yeah), this is great entertainment.     

That said, I did not want to do this particular race. I woke up with multi-ton inertia and surely would have blown the thing off, except for this:

I also run for Girl Child.

Coming to events like this is, I truly believe, good for her.

For one, she gets exposed to athletics she can grow up and grow old with, as opposed to the boutique kid sports – soccer, lacrosse -- that Unsuburbans fetishize.

The bigger deal is parental. Girl Child coming to watch me redresses a drastic imbalance in our family and every other kid-centric, over-invested unit. Think how often we show up at recitals, games, whatever, beaming, shooting video, and afterward gushing “You were great! We’re so proud of you…”

Right and proper, but maybe not all the time.  

So this morning we turn things around.

Minerva, I think, is in better shape here. GC gets and brags about Mama’s wins at work, which keep us housed and fed. GC loves going to her office. On top of that, there’s daughter-mother adulation that Pater can only wonder at. Beautiful…

But so is this.  

After 40-some minutes, born along on the great river of endorphins and people in fabu running gear, I start my kick, oxygenated by cheering from the finish-line crowd.

In the general noise, I hear my two favorite voices in the world.

Minerva calls my name.

Girl Child yells “Daddeeee.”

The Tortoise wins!

So, Pop, what do you do so the kid cheers for you? 

Extra credit question: If an 8K is parenting, what isn’t?    

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