Friday, November 9, 2012

Dave loves to torture people?


I catch myself at times being a Dr. Jekyll and Dr. Hyde when it comes to being understanding and emotionally affirming. As the case with most of us I have infinite patience with my wacky crazy teens who do ‘bad stuff’ too often and then become a screecher with those I love, mostly my Anne. I’m so excited about my Anne having the opportunity to do training to become a certified Chaplin. This will require a huge amount of commitment on my Anne’s part between classroom time, on the job training and then a ‘boat load’ of reading. This morning we were talking about how the Internet works with iPhones, iPads and laptops. My impatient side comes out when we discuss ‘geek’ stuff because I make too many false assumptions about my Anne understanding the practical side of high tech.

When I fall into my ‘teacher’ voice that is rather condescending, I know that my Anne will usual break down. I really don’t mean to do this but it happens on occasion. I can have a tendency of coming across as a know it all. I am learning that it is so important for my Anne to be independent in the area of her new professional pursuits. I obviously loved being needed by many when it comes to life issues not just the latest Apple device. I realize even in my life how inter-dependent I am upon so many different people. My hope, which will be realized soon, is that my Anne will become the Apple expert with her MacBook Pro, iPhone and iPad.

I know that most dads’ struggle with their relationships with their sons more than their daughters. It is so much easier to spoil our daughters who become our little princesses than our abused sons who always seemed neglected or picked at. I know that my son has clashed with me a lot over the last 10 years, yeah he’s 28, because of my way of doing things and in his mind being too quick to judge and attempt to squeeze him into my box. My hope is that as he has kids he will realize that it’s not easy being a dad. No excuses but guys are stereotyped as being tough guys who don’t communicate very well and are always quicker to judge than give accolades.

It is easy for all of us to look back at our life story and have very different perceptions of life events that our dads might view as being watershed moments that we truly believed were torture. I will always remember my son’s first adventure on a real bike without training wheels. We lived in Walnut Creek across from a nice park that had lots of grass, trees and shrubs. The park was on a significant grade that seemed perfect for riding on a 2 wheeler without any assistance. So I did the typical dad thing of running with him next to the bike and then letting him go. I would compare this to a bird pushing out its baby birds to fly for the first time. The first few seconds they are struggling to figure out they are supposed to flap their wings until suddenly they are zooming all over the heavens.

Needless to say my over exuberance meant my son went down the hill out of control and ended up colliding with a tree or bush. I remember the rest of us laughing and then saying great job! Yet, as I have heard this story repeated by him it was more that I was this sinister torturer that purposely planned out this catastrophic event to scare him for life. So I have to admit that all of us did laugh even though my initial thought wasn’t let’s see if I can push him into a tree, shrub or the fence that was around the community pool.

I do apologize to my son and my other kids for doing things at times that were totally a ‘dad’ thing without much regard for the end result. Yes, I do enjoy torturing my wife, my kids and my New City kids and teens too often.  It’s too much fun but I know can end up scaring someone. Oops – SORRY. 

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