Girl Trapped

My oldest daughter, Ashley, picked up a saying during her preschool years, "Girl Trapped." This occurs when a boy finds himself sitting between two girls (there is also "boy trapped" when a girl is between two boys). It's the new generation's form of "cooties" if you will. So, naturally, as I am living in a house with a lovely wife and 4 daughters, Ashley likes to mention to me quite often that I am, indeed, girl trapped. Whether we're at the dinner table, on the couch, or in the car, it's just what I am most of the time.

You know what, I'm okay with that. Raising daughters is actually quite a lot of fun. Would I have liked a son? Maybe. I'm actually holding out hope that having all daughters means I'll have plenty of grandsons someday. But for now, I will enjoy every moment of dancing with princesses, witnessing epic soap operas with barbies, always keeping in the forefront of my mind that if I want them to marry exceptional men, I need to be an exceptional father.

Girl Trapped, and proud of it every day.

BTW, I would like to compile a top ten list answering this question: "What's so great about being a dad?" You are welcome to leave a comment giving your top reasons, and we'll see if one of yours makes the list. Thanks for reading.

Challenging Times

I'm sure we can all admit when we feel challenged as a father; when we think to ourselves, "I have no clue how to handle this." We all come up against these barriers, and as a new father, I ran into that for the first time when Ashley would not stop crying as a newborn. It was, to say the least, frustrating for Amy and I. Here we are, brand new parents, doing all the things the books suggested and she just kept crying.

It turned out she had acid reflux. Ashley was born three weeks early, and her digestive system just wasn't fully developed yet. We were relieved by this outcome for two reasons: the first being that we knew what to do to help her, and the second being that it wasn't our fault she was constantly crying. Once we got Ash on the medicine, she became a much more pleasant baby and we finally started sleeping again.

I share this because I think we have all questioned the quality of our own parenting skills. For me, in this instance, I felt like a bad father because I couldn't even comfort my own child. Even though I felt like this, even though we may all feel like this at times, it's not because of us or our abilities, but the circumstances surrounding the situation. The most we can hope for is to control the internal forces and adapt to the external forces.

I invite any of you to share a time when you felt challenged as a father and how you adapted and solved the situation. I welcome any questions you may have as well. Thank you for reading.

Defining Today's Fathers

I've had this idea bouncing around in my head for a while now. Looking back on past generations, it's pretty plain to see that the role of the father has evolved, in my opinion, for the better. The plainest being that fathers are simply more involved in the family's well-being. We help with the cooking, the cleaning, the housework. Conversely, a lot of mothers in our generation have entered the job market in order to help the father provide for the family. The so-called "gender roles" of parenting pasts are out the window. We have embraced a new age of "co-parenting", if I can call it that; an age where the conventional family by yesteryear's definition is anything but conventional.

Here's my hope and my great plan for this blog: To define just what it means to be a father in the 21st century. This idea that I have is that fathers from all over can share experiences, ideas, epiphanies, anything at all that gave them insight into what it takes to be a good father in this day and age. I hope that if anyone reads this, they will feel inspired to continuously strive to be a better father than they already are. Let's see what happens . . .