Author: suburbanfatherhood

memories, wedding

Wedding Reminders

Posted on by suburbanfatherhood

Last night my suburban wife and I attended a wedding. Having been married for 8 years, with kids for 5 of those 8 years, attending a wedding of this sort was both a shock to the system and a great reminder.

The Shock

First, it was a shock to the system. It was by no means a bad wedding. The food and drink were great, and the couple put on a great party. It just felt very foreign to us. I’m sure you’re familiar with the feeling. “This life used to be normal, but somehow it feels off”. Not in a bad way, just off.

The bride and groom are 2 years younger than my wife. A 2 year difference can be minimal, or it can be momentous. When those two years include kids, job changes, a mortgage, etc, it was momentous for us. Not only did it start later than we normally do anything (constrained to the routines of small children), but it’s been a long time since we had the opportunity to choose to do late night events simply because we wanted to.

Picture it this way: When you are in college, your life feels normal. You’re going through it day after day. Whatever the groups, parties, or identities you join and craft, it’s normal. 10 years later, few people live the same lifestyle. Not only that, but if you put them in the same situations, it feels a bit foreign. And as a society, we believe this is both true and a good thing. If someone still acts like they are in college 10 years later, we normally see a maturity issue at play.

And so it was with us last night. We were in the room, partaking of the wedding celebration, but it just felt a little bit foreign.

The Reminder

But also, the wedding was a great reminder. At times it feels like I’ve been married forever. I can remember the period of time between getting married and having kids and having a double income and no kids (DINK if you will). I can remember before we were married and, despite working on a masters degree, having plenty of free time to do what I wanted. But those times feel like a lifetime away. Gone are the days of traveling the country to play sports. Gone are the days of having a healthy restaurant budget each month. Gone are the days of choosing to get up and go somewhere on the weekend for no reason whatsoever.

Sitting through the wedding, we were presented with someone else’s vision for what a wedding should look like, and that, in turn, presented us with the things we liked better about ours. This is not to say that ours was better, simply that ours was ours. From the venue, to the officiant, to the music, to the time of day, these are all things that we made difference choices that felt more like us. The joys of that day, the blur that it was, but also the points that are crystal clear when our memories that we made.

In conclusion, it was great to attend the wedding, but also to be reminded that we are at a different stage of life, further down the road, and to be happy and content with that.

-SF

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Reasons I made my child cry…

Posted on by suburbanfatherhood
  • I disciplined them for breaking a rule (such as no hitting their sibling)
  • I didn’t read them the book they wanted.
  • I DID read them the book they wanted.
  • “I’m not reaaaaaaady to sleep.” (Said while yawning)
  • They don’t want to be in time out.
  • They don’t want to go outside.
  • They DO want to go outside.
  • It wasn’t the right color of hair barrette.
  • Mommy wasn’t home.
  • Daddy WAS home.
  • [insert random stuffed animal] is lost.
  • They wanted to be alone while they changed.
  • [30 seconds later] I left while they changed.
  • That yogurt was yucky.
  • Daddy is trying to sleep.

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Things I Never Thought I’d Say to my Child Part 2

Posted on by suburbanfatherhood
  • Don’t climb on that…
  • Be careful!
  • I’m sorry you got hurt… did you at least learn something?
  • Stop saying the word poop…
  • Stop saying the word barf…
  • Stop saying the word fart…
  • No yelling in my ear….
  • No yelling in your sister/brother’s ear.
  • No, you may not pinch my neck, but thanks for asking.
  • No, you may not pinch my nose, but thanks for asking.
  • No, you may not drive the car, but thanks for asking.
  • No, you may not lick the toilet, but thanks for asking.
  • No, you may not sit on my head, but thanks for asking.

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Things I never thought I’d Say to my Child part 1

Posted on by suburbanfatherhood
  • Don’t put that Lego in your nose…
  • Take that Lego out of your nose…
  • Don’t put that Lego in your ear….
  • Take that Lego out of your ear…
  • Don’t lick my arm…
  • Don’t slap your butt at me…
  • Don’t wipe [that] on the wall…
  • Why did you wipe [that] on the wall?
  • Don’t tell your mother about this…
  • Superheros don’t hit good guys…
  • Why did you slap him on the butt?
  • Why did you pee on the playground?
  • Why did you pee on me?
  • If you have to pee, stop and go potty right away!
  • What do you mean, “I think I’m going to puke”?
  • No you can’t jump off the table…
  • Stop wiping your eyes, it’s going to make it worse!
  • Stop yelling in my ear…
  • Don’t throw things at the TV…
  • (two weeks later) Why is the TV broken?

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Here’s Your Sign

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You might be a suburban father if…

  1. You have an SUV parked out front.
  2. Your drive to work spends too much time in traffic.
  3. Your kids are enrolled in at least two sports apiece.
  4. Your house looks exactly like your neighbors.
  5. But the neighbors’ grass is always greener.
  6. Going out to dinner means going to a mall/strip mall.
  7. You’re married to a soccer mom.
  8. The cul-de-sac is the playground for your kids.
  9. Landscaping is a part time hobby.
  10. The HOA takes a portion of your pay check.

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What Does Suburban Mean?

Posted on by suburbanfatherhood

I live in the suburbs, the final battleground of the American dream, where people get married and have kids and try to scratch out a happy life for themselves.

Harlan Corben

The suburbs were the dream of the 1950’s. A small house, white picket fence, 2.5 children (I always wondered how a half child worked), a dog in the yard, and a car in the driveway. The American war machine had turned off from WWII and people were living their little slice of God, Mom, and Apple Pie (all things American). You built or bought your house, raised your family, retired there while drawing a pension, and eventually passed it on to your kids.

How far we have come.

Today, the suburbs are that great sprawl that is not quite urban, although many places try to assume that identity, but not quite rural. It extends from the very city limits, out until you can no longer commute into the city realistically. People live there because they were born there (in the suburbs that is, a lot more moves is common in the rat race now). Everyone has their 1/4 acre slice of the American dream, from which to gaze enviously at their neighbor’s land and wish it was theirs.

To be suburban today means enrolling your kids in as much as you can, pushing them to succeed, putting on a cheery smile every day, making sure you look your best, and filling up your calendar for the next 3 weeks.

We’ve lost all sense of the American Dream. To boldly go and live where no people had gone before. To carve out life in an area you have to drive for everything, but still account for rush hour. To be fruitful, multiply, and have dominion over the land.

(If none of this sounds familiar, this is at least the suburbs in my area of the country).

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Suburban Pressure

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The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.

Moulin Rouge

Moulin Rouge is an entertaining movie, but quite frankly the notion that all you need is love is not one that carries much weight around here. Love is great, it is one of Maslow’s five basic needs. Love is a powerful force that has sent armies to war, people to jail, and caused people to lay down their lives for another. Perceived love (in the form of arranged marriages) was used to bind countries together.

And yet, it doesn’t pay the mortgage. It doesn’t instantly make my kids a success. And it certainly doesn’t make them behave. You see, it takes more than love, or at least it feels that way. It takes money, skills, time, and all the after school activities you can sign your kids up for to make them a success. This is what is taught in the suburbs. Not explicitly. But implicitly when you talk to people, or look at what their kids are involved in, it feels like the world is always providing something more, something better, for their kids. While mine get the lesser.

All this causes pressure. It puts pressure on both parents in different ways but for those of us who are fathers, it pressures us to work harder to try to provide more and better opportunities. But in that work we lose time and opportunities to be with our children. We teach them that we only show we love them by working harder, not by being with them. We perpetuate the false truths that already swirl in the culture.

Sadly, we too often ignore the role that love plays. We ignore that truly loving someone requires dying to ourselves each and every day. Many are quick to say that they would take a bullet for a family member. But in the words of George Washington (in Hamilton) “Dying is easy, living is harder”. Living each day choosing someone else’s welfare over ours is hard. Answering the question why time and again is hard.

But really, isn’t this how the perfect father would act? With patience, kindness, and a desire to truly be present with his kids? Work may be inevitable, but finding that balance is crucial to creating children who in turn pass on that love to their eventual families. If you’ve seen a true example of this, it’s hard to forget. If you’ve experienced a bad example of this, it’s hard to forget as well.

May we all set good examples for our kids.

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Life is Different

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Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.

Albert Einstein

There are many life changing moments when you are a father. There’s the moment you find out the blue lines appeared on the home pregnancy test, the moment you hear the heartbeat for the first time and see you child moving around, the seeming eternity during labor and delivery, and then the biggest of all, when they send you home with a child that’s only been breathing on their own for 24 hours and no detailed instruction books or reset button. It’s a wonder humanity has survived as long as it has!

I can remember each of these moments vividly for both of our children. Yes, by the second it was not “new”, but it was still another step on the journey of suburban fatherhood. For someone like myself who likes to believe they are well prepared for life, it’s a shock to the system, a wake up call that I am so very inadequately prepared for real life. And yet the days continue, the new experiences pile up and decisions have to be made.

It’s these moments that changed me from someone who played video games before going to work, into someone who changes wet beds at 2 am. From someone who destroyed an old copier with a baseball bat into someone who gets pummeled by a toddler who doesn’t want to leave yet. From someone who traveled to play sports to someone who changes hundreds of diapers, and enjoys every minute of it.

It’s ironic that in helping to build the life for a child, I am called to die to so much of what I used to think made up my life. I am growing as much as my children are, in my love for them, in my humility, in my sacrifice, in my understanding of my own journey.

But in growing, I am also failing. Anyone who tries something new makes mistakes, and my parenting is riddled with them. I provoke my children in the name of “teaching” them the right way to live. I react with emotion when they push my buttons instead of remembering how I felt when I was their age. I have thoughts on what activities I want them involved in based on how they impact my schedule. I want to be their ruler, not their loving father.

So what’s the answer? I think it is four-fold:

  • Take deep breaths -> Life is not perfect and I am not perfect. When I find myself getting worked up over facts like that, it’s time to do what I tell our kids to do, “take a deep breath and count to 10”.
  • Find an example to follow -> In this life there are better fathers and worse fathers. Find someone who has walked the path ahead of you and use their counsel. As you look for a perfect example of fatherhood to follow, you may be surprised at what it teaches you about yourself.
  • Find comfort in company -> Don’t try to do it alone. There are many of us on parallel paths, stumbling along. If we come together, perhaps we’ll be able to help each other up when we stumble.
  • Give yourself grace -> American society has been unpacking how your “story” is formed by your parents and experiences for a while now. But remember that no matter what your background, no one mistake is going to mess up your kids forever. We all come from imperfect fathers, and will be imperfect fathers.

Oh, and full disclosure, the picture above is not me, it’s licensed under the creative commons license. But I can 100% sympathize with both the child and the father in this picture.

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Constitution, Domestic Tranquility, Jones

The Joneses

Posted on by suburbanfatherhood


We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Preamble to the Constitution of the United States of America

Have you met our neighbor the Joneses? They’ve been living in the Suburbs since before we were. If you peek over the fence into their manicured yard, you’ll see they have the all toys my son would like to have, the pets my daughter would like to have, the clothes my wife would like to have, and the peace and quiet I would like to have. Somehow they have a higher income, while working less hours, and keep everything together. They are truly living the American dream, established by our founding fathers, while our welfare is less, our domestic tranquility is less, and we feel like we are missing the blessings of liberty.

It’s amazing how the suburbs have changed our perspective on life. It’s provided us space to grow, space to call our own, space to create our lives in. And yet our worlds seem so small compared to others. Outside my window a Cherry tree is in full bloom, but I notice the weeds in the grass (or rather the grass growing between the weeds). My focus is drawn to that which is lesser, instead of that which is beautiful and good. Rather than get lost in the blossoms being blown by the wind, I worry that the bushes are an eyesore. Rather than gaze in wonder at the home my income allows us to live in, I see the molding that needs to be re-caulked, and the ceilings that are not the same shade of white. Somehow the suburbs have provided both a freedom and a cage at the same time.

This issue presents a huge challenge to suburban fatherhood. It pushes us to work longer hours, while bemoaning the vacations the Jones family gets. It creates tensions over financial discussions, how much to spend today vs. save for tomorrow. It builds walls between us and the Joneses, rather than letting us live together in harmony. How do we solve this problem?

We have to start with an uncomfortable truth – the American Dream does not mean everyone will be a millionaire, or that everyone will have peace and happiness. It means we have freedom: freedom to live, freedom to love, freedom to pursue our passions. It means the general welfare is held up. That all men (and women) have the same general protections and opportunities (more on this in a bit). It means that we have certain inalienable rights that are true for all citizens. Nowhere in this does it say that I will be as successful as the Joneses. Or that we will have what they have.

Then we have to give ourselves, and the Joneses, grace. Grace that says it’s OK if we don’t make as much, or have as much, or get as much rest. Grace that says we are successful if we provide for our family and teach our kids the right way to live. Grace that does not build up walls and push the Jones family away just because they have been blessed differently than us. Grace to see the cherry tree instead of the weeds.

*Note, while the Constitution was written to ensure all peoples have the same opportunities and protections, I readily recognize it has been a 250 year struggle to have that applied regardless of gender, race, socioeconomic status, or other dividing factors.

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Teddy Roosevelt, Why

The Beginning

Posted on by suburbanfatherhood

When you are asked if you can do a job, tell ’em, ‘Certainly I can!’ Then get busy and find out how to do it.

Teddy Roosevelt

Why am I starting a blog post, adding my name to the veritable barrage of mommy blogs, millennial blogs, foodies, critics, shoppers, self-help gurus, and so many others that have joined the search for identity online? Much like everyone else, there are two simple reasons:

  1. To bear my soul -> Many people don’t realize the challenges faced in suburbia by working dads (not single parent dads, just ones who have a job outside the home in general), the pressures and commitments, and the need to find a way to express myself in between meetings that require me to wear the noose around my neck that is called a tie, and coming home and rolling around with kids to give Mom a break.
  2. To prove my wife wrong -> And really, isn’t this why every man sets goals and pursuits? Because he has been challenged by his wife that “I bet you couldn’t….” fill in the blank here. And unashamedly, my wife thinks I am incapable of understanding the technology that is the Internet, as well as the having the follow through to actually compose blog posts, put words together in coherent sentences, and make this happen.

So over the course of the next year, prepare to join me on this journey of life with a family in Suburbia America. It’s going to be a wild ride, and I welcome you to strap yourself in between the car seats in back and come along with us.

Cheers!

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