This article entered my media stream a little while ago and it may surprise you, it annoyed me. I was surprised when I read the comments on the post how people were affected by the post and how they felt it was so true.

The article gives off about a scene the blogger witnessed:

As Noah and I stood in line to make a return, I watched as a little boy (he couldn’t have been older than six) looked up at his dad and asked very timidly if they could buy some ice cream when they were done. The father glared him down, and through clenched teeth, growled at the boy to “leave him alone and be quiet”. The boy quickly cowered to the wall where he stood motionless and hurt for some time.

The line slowly progressed and the child eventually shuffled back to his father as he quietly hummed a childish tune, seemingly having forgotten the anger his father had just shown. The father again turned and scolded the boy for making too much noise. The boy again shrunk back and cowered against the wall, wilted.

…

We were three from the front now, and the boy started to come towards his dad yet again. His dad immediately stepped out of the line, jammed his fingers into his son’s collar bones until he winced in pain, and threatened him. “If you so much as make a sound or come off of that wall again, I promise you’re going to get it when we get home.” The boy again cowered against the wall. This time, he didn’t move. He didn’t make a sound. His beautiful face pointed down, locked to the floor and expressionless. He had been broken. And that’s how his father wanted it. He didn’t want to deal with him, and breaking him was the easiest way.

Now as a father myself I have a big issue with anyone that uses any sort of physical punishment. I believe that slapping is never required. That father should not have jammed his finger like that. That’s not what the article is about or rather not exactly, because it goes on, saying what fathers should be.

Damn it. I don’t understand that, and I’ll never understand that. Loving my son, building my son, touching my son, playing with my son, being with my son… these aren’t tasks that only super dads can perform. These are tasks that every dad should perform. Always. Without fail. There is nothing special about me. I am a dad who loves his son and would literally do anything for his well-being, safety, and health. I would gladly take a rake in the face or a jackhammer to my feet before I cut my own son down or make him feel small.

“Without fail”, huh? Really? Okay, by that standard I’m not even a good Dad! I love my kids, I’ll do anything for them. But I’m human and I shout at my kids, way more than I like. They make me angry. I’m tired.

Dads. Wake up! These precious souls that have been put into your care are unique and so very sensitive. Everything you say or don’t say will impact their ability, success, and happiness throughout their entire lives.

I understand the sentiment of the article, I do. I can’t justify physical abuse of any kind against children. But then saying that Dads have to be perfect beings, all the time, that a single moment of failure will affect your child forever, isn’t helping! It’s quite the opposite, it’s setting you up for failure. Aspire to perfection and if you can’t make it or you slip, even a little, well you’ve just broken your child. Forever. That’s putting more stress on top of already stressful work, that’s the last thing you need to do. It’s not what you want to tell parents. Let me explain further.

It’s only 9pm in the evening when I start writing this, my kids are finally in bed, hopefully asleep. I’m struggling to write this post as I’m fighting the tiredness, seriously, it’s only 9pm and I could crawl up to bed right now and be asleep in minutes. It’s Thursday nearly the end of the week, but it’s not like the weekends are particularly restful with the kids activities and their inability to sleep past 7am. I’ve been up since 6am, getting the kids up, dressed and ready to school, then work for 8 hours (or more), late lunch, then picked up the kids (my wife brought them to school) who seemed to be bouncing off the walls with energy this evening. I then struggled to get their dinner and get them bathed by myself (as my wife has to work later than usual). My son is still potting training, so in the middle of this balancing act I had to clean poo from his trousers and his legs while he refuses to stand in one place (he thinks it’s a game, to run off with poo on his legs and he’s feck’in fast!). And that isn’t the half of it. My point? It’s not easy. It’s barely fun.

I’ve practiced meditation for years, but I’d have to be a zen master to keep calm all the time. Thankfully my wife and myself tag team. When it gets too much, I walk away from the kids and calm down and my wife takes over. And vice-versa. The article writer is right, getting angry with your kid doesn’t help the kid, but it also doesn’t help you. Anger begets anger, something I learned recently thanks to the Internet again, it’s better to calm down and defocus.

On the other side, my son babbled to me about a new game he did in school and my daughter decided that my new hair cut is super soft and kept trying to rub my head. I read my son a story about Fionn, a Celtic mythic hero, and a dragon and my daughter decided she would call me her “fuzzy bear”. We listened as my daughter tried reading from a reading-along book. These are wonderful, joyful, moments. More important than poo on trousers.

I came across a phrase that describes parenting pretty well: “All Joy and No fun”. It’s hard work and we modern parents have a tendency to stress ourselves out much more than our parents did. I got this phrase from the title of this article, one which I think gives a very good idea of what modern parenting is like. Really, read it. Parents are not happier than non-parents, it’s a myth to think parents are happier because they have kids, one I find very hard to understand why people believe it. We may feel more content in one way, but not happier. Do you know, we spend more time with our kids than our parents did with us, yet we still think it’s not enough?

Take this scene described in that article:

’m going to count to three.”

It’s a weekday evening, and the mother in this videotape, a trim brunette with her hair in a bun and glasses propped up on her head, has already worked a full day and made dinner. Now she is approaching her 8-year-old son, the oldest of two, who’s seated at the computer in the den, absorbed in a movie. At issue is his homework, which he still hasn’t done.

“One. Two …”

“I have to get it to the part and then pause it,” says the boy.

“No,” says his mother. “You do that after you do your homework.”

Tamar Kremer-Sadlik, the director of research in this study, has watched this scene many times. The reason she believes it’s so powerful is because it shows how painfully parents experience the pressure of making their children do their schoolwork. They seem to feel this pressure even more acutely than their children feel it themselves.

The boy starts to shout. “It’s not going to take that long!”

His mother stops the movie. “I’m telling you no,” she says. “You’re not hearing me. I will not let you watch this now.”

He starts up the movie again.

“No,” she repeats, her voice rising. She places her hand firmly under her son’s arm and starts to yank. “I will not have this— ”

Been there (though I would not do the physical pulling part). Been there every morning when it’s 7.30am and I know if we leave just 5 minutes later we’ll be 20 minutes late (stupid Dublin traffic), yet my son doesn’t want to go because he’s started playing with his cars. I’ve got them dressed, brushed their teeth, got breakfast ready for them, readied their bags and got their coats and winter hats ready. I’m running at 100mph, but my son is at 0mph wanting to play with his cars. It’s like running into a glass door. But I shouldn’t get angry right? I should cherish this moment, I wouldn’t want to break my child right?

It’s easy the first time to not get upset. You change the routine the next day, give more time to the kids in the morning. Get up even earlier. Prep the stuff in the evening first, biting into that precious, child-free-time. And so on, but there is only so much you can do. And every day you’re rushing at 100mph and some morning, one of the kids won’t want to rush. Hey, they’re kids. Or instead they’ve woken up in the middle of the night, so you only get two chunks of a few hours sleep or they wake up an hour before you have to get up. That’s a real killer. How can you not get angry and annoyed at this point? Please tell me how? I have a tendency to just shut-down when I get so exasperated about it. My energy just goes out of me. It’s not the kids fault, but you can’t keep emotions under check all the time, you aren’t Spock. I just wonder how anyone can be such a “good” Dad (or Mom) 24/7? Parents are people.

My wife and myself use to watch “Law and Order SVU” a lot, not at all now. I remember one episode about a baby that had been shaken and had died. Lots of twisty turns and it ends up the single mother did it and tried to blame it on the babysitter. The mother couldn’t handle the baby crying all the time (this was before Facebook/Farmville was the excuse). But it was at the end of the episode that had an impact on me, when Detective Elliot describes a moment when his child wouldn’t shut up crying in the middle of the night and he found himself about to shake his child. The inference was that any parent, give the “right” circumstances, could be pushed to the edge. Of course, being an entertainment show, it little more than pure fear-mongering. But there is a grain of truth in there.

I have different advice for parents.

Dads (and Moms too of course), enjoy every moment you can with your child. There is no such thing as “quality time”, all time is “quality time”. Cherish them, cherish the memory. Love them every way you can. Make them your priority over everything else. Enjoy them for who they are and who they’ll become. Because this will get you over the dark times. The times when you’re tired and can’t handle it. The times, in the middle of the night, when the baby is screaming and you haven’t slept properly in weeks. The times when the family is so tired and stressed out wandering around a shopping mall that getting a coffee seems like an insurmountable chore and your son is demanding (or at least to your stress-addled brain it appears that they are demanding) something you told them they can’t have 10 minutes ago.

Dads. Play with them when you can and when you can’t. It’s often when you don’t feel up to playing with them that they can make you the happiest. Understand that they just want your attention and your love. Even when they do “bold” things, they do it because they want you.

Dads. Know that you will get angry. Know that you will get depressed. Frustrated. Know that you will not be happy. Just don’t take it out on your children. Walk away, take a breath. Let chaos happen for a while. It’ll pass. Make sure you have things to keep you sane, be it’s friends, gaming or writing a blog. Remember that you’re still a human being.

Dads. Understand there are other ways to discipline your child. In this day and age there are enough books, TV shows and courses that slapping should be completely unnecessary. Don’t let anger cloud your judgement because you are much stronger than your kids, more than you probably realise. Catch yourself before you do something. It’s the kids job to push their boundaries, which means pushing your buttons. And believe me, they get good at it quickly.

Dads. Don’t expect your child to be perfect. Don’t expect your child to be a genius. They’ll be who they’ll be and know they won’t always do what you want them to or be what you want them to be. When you can, go at their pace. It may be slow, but it’ll be worth it.

Dads. Try to be good parents. It’s hard, but make sure there is more good than bad. Be there. And yes, what you do will affect your child, often in ways you can’t perceive yet. Try to be better, because they’ll learn from you even the things you try to hide from them. But that’s important too.

And Dads, you’re not alone.

I could probably write more, but lets leave it that.

Now I’m in work, the next morning, considering hitting the publish button. I have my doubts I should post this. The kids were great this morning, up and full of energy. Running around like bulls in a plastic shop. My daughter got dressed herself and my younger son was full of hugs and play. I love my kids and would do anything for them. But I’m also not just a parent and neither is my wife. The kids were at school early this morning.

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Us parents, at least with young kids, seem to live in a different time zone or parallel timeline to our non-parent friends. We can meet up with other parent friends that we haven’t seen in three… five… years and it’s like we haven’t seen each other in only weeks. There is an acceptance that time moves different once you have kids. Literally years can zip by where you don’t keep up with some friends and it’s not because you don’t like them or don’t want to keep up with them. It’s just not practical, or rather our priorities are different.

With my single friends though, a year is an age. Meeting up with single or non-parent folk after not seeing or talking them in a year or two, they can be seemingly different people! I don’t mean this to say that parents are “better” than non-parents (or vice-versa), please don’t take it that way. I’m not jealous either, we made our choice and I love my kids.

But just sometimes I find that the time deferential generates a gap between myself and others and that it remains even after they have kids. Which saddens me sometimes.

I don’t think non-parents get what it’s like being a parent. Certainly I didn’t. You can watch all the movies you like, you won’t know. There are some books that can prepare you a bit, but still, everything changes when you have kids. Apparent our male brains change too once we become fathers too (certainly I’ve become incredible sensitive to hearing kids cry or more specifically my kids cry, I can hear them across the playground or the other side of a field).

It certainly makes it harder to adapt to things outside of the parental sphere. It’s quite difficult to start something new unless you have all the support in place as you often have to trade against family time or the few other things that currently keep you sane and you don’t know if it’ll be worth it ahead of time. The “cost” (being away from the kids or leaving your partner to handle the thick of it) can feel like too much. The stereotype of the father who buys exercise equipment but never uses them or buys “useless” gadgets has some truth in it. (I bought my Wii in the full knowledge that I wouldn’t use it as much as I could… I haven’t even finished Zelda yet and it’s three years old). It’s easier to maintain hobbies that you started before becoming a parent, or at least that’s what I’ve found. (And I’m glad to have some old friends that I can still meet up/game with it).

I’m curious if other parents feel/think the same and what is the non-parent perspective? Are us parents just a bunch of lazy showers or is it appreciated that were simply moving more slowly?

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This is what three weeks looks like

Two weeks on and I’m still lacking much motivation. Things are getting up to speed though, shortly my daughter will be going back to school signifying the end of the summer and the routine will dramatically change again and in work, all our customers have returned from their holidays and have started dumping crap on us again. And it’s taken me two weeks to just sit down to write this post. Shouldn’t really take that much, but energy and focus have been lacking. I guess the dull weather since getting home has putting on a drain, especially when we had such lovely weather on holidays.

(More pics and drawings after the break)

He was so tired, he just fell asleep outside

When I was on holidays, despite only get one true sleep-in (as in I wasn’t woken by the kids at 7am, my wife and myself took turns getting up to take care of the weeks) and despite the weather not being gorgeous all the time, I was rather productive. I wrote three new short stories. They are currently sitting on my laptop awaiting editing, but it was fun to just write and they are rather short. I will eventually get them up online, if you care to read them. I also spent a huge amount of time working on my Lost Heroes RPG: Book of the Gods. In total I wrote 27,288 words (is that a lot?), all for my own pleasure. I’m still chugging away at Book of the Gods, but my rate of progress has severely slowed (writing this post means I’m not working on it). But it’s moving forward at least.

The weather before we left: foggy, cold and raining!

The holiday was great in general. It was nice weather most of the time, expect for one memorable storm that started suddenly with thunder and lightning in the middle of the day. Then hailstones the size of large marbles and ten minutes later, it’s over.  An hour later, the sun has dried everything.

There was some family crisis, my poor wife hurt her back and shes still have some serious problems with it now, over two weeks later. It’s slowly getting better, but I won’t get into it. Besides that it was just good to get away.

The weather in France

I also got to do some drawing and painting, some of it came out quite nice, but I certainly didn’t produce as much output as I have done in previous years. One of the quirks of the place we go is that there is no television, no Internet connection and we don’t even bother to turn on the radio. It’s absolute great to disconnect. I did try to “tweet” a little while away but it seems I forgot that a text message is longer than 140 so I ended up with loads of messages that cut out right in the middle! Anyway, I left behind any of the work I did create so I all I have of the stuff I did are these photos:

I’m not too fond of the watercolour though. I never finished it, becoming frustrated by the mixing of the colours (I couldn’t produce enough consistent colours). I didn’t get the chance to do another though. The great thing though about where we go is that its full of inspiring things! Books and posters from the Napoleon era, this antique box of gaming stuff, these old boilers in every room or this great big tower at the front of the house:

But holidays can’t last forever I guess. And now I’m back in the real world. Go me!

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So I’m going on holidays tomorrow, for a goodly period of time (but not too long). Can’t wait to get out of here and stop worrying about the recession, work, weather and everything else for a little bit.

I’m looking forward to it, not least because it’s time with my family but also because it’s time I get to indulge my creative hobbies, normally my drawing, writing and coding. No deadlines, no plans. In fact I finished off my One Month Fudge Adventure Challenge early because having a deadline was definitely focusing me but to the exclusion of all my other creative interests. Of course my family takes first place in practically everything (and I can’t wait to see my daughter again as she went ahead to spend a week or two with her French granny), but there generally enough time to get into stuff I don’t do at home.

I’m bringing my trusty/quirky 10-years-old laptop with me, but I won’t have internet access or even local TV. That’s fine for me. I’ll have a local webserver installed, so if I feel like it, I may work on TDO-Mini-Forms WordPress plugin (not bug fixes though, but additional features and refactoring). I’ll have my sketchpad, pencils, paints and bright clear weather to work by. I already have a number of projects I’d love to attempt. And my old laptop with OpenOffice and an install of Bazaar allows me to write away with few worries (and I have a score of ideas and projects just waiting to be cracked open). I’ll even have the time to read tens of books, compared to the measly one or two books every few months I do the rest of the year.

I’ve also been recently getting into twitter (@thedeadone) and using it quite a bit, more so then I blog. But I’ve found I can twitter from my underpowered non-iPhone mobile so I may be sending some tweets and pics from my holidays. I’ve even setup my WordPress blog (so that I can post from my phone too (thanks to a cool plugin called postie), so possible expect some short updates and photos here.

See you in a while!

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“Daddy…” my four year old daughter started to declare in the back of the car on the way home from work, “… in Dr. Zeus the robots say…”. I’m thinking right now, who the hell is Dr. Zeus? She then does the next bit in her best robot-like voice, “‘Extermalade. Extermalade. Extermalade…’“.

Ah, my wonderful daughter!

 For those unfamiliar with Dr. Who, this is a loose translation from the mind of a four-year-old to father-geek level…

“In Dr. Who, the Darleks say ‘Exterminate. Exterminate. Exterminate.’”

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And the rain this morning really tops it off.  I’ve spent the last two days going through all my emails, forum posts, web feeds and blog comments and I’m dozzed out with info overload. It really feels like I haven’t been away now at all, ack!

I didn’t do an inch of coding while on holidays and I’m all the better for it, loads of family time, sunny weather, no stress, no work and I even got to do some writing (for my “secret project” L___ H_____) and drawing (I’ll put up scans later). I’m hoping to keep the momentum up for writing, at least until work has worn me out a bit. I’m afraid this doesn’t mean more blogging but I’ll try and keep regular updates going.

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One of the many “joys” of having kids is the family-communal-getting-sick-together weekends.

Kids get sick. It’s part of growing up, builds up their immunity. It is even more common if your kids are in creche or school as they’ll get sick “6 or 7 times in the year” (as our Doctor once told us) as they’ll pick up what ever is going from all their little friends.

What’s worse is, if they get it, you the parent will probably get it too and their siblings will as well. Which is what of course happened to us last weekend. Tristan (our six month old baby) got sick on the Thursday. Friday night and Saturday I was sick. Saturday night Alice (our 3 and bit year old daughter) got sick and on Sunday Sophie (my wife) felt off and today she’s out of work sick. Great weekend!

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Maybe we should have called him Lord Oberon instead of Tristan. Sophie suggested Puck more than once. I think he must have a wicked sense of humour appropriate to Shakespeare’s Midsummer’s Night fairies. I think he looks a little like a troll too: all wrinkly, hunched and curled and with really long arms! I was tempted to make him a little paper mache club.

But he is so adorable: small, soft and cuddly, you can help but love him. When he tries to lift his little head, his motions are like those clay-motion monsters from the seventies/sixties (you know like Jason and the Argonauts). I just want to hold him the whole time.

(If you want to see more pictures of Tristan, see my wife’s page. You’ll need a password, but just ask (leave a comment, send me an email, call me, etc.) and you shall receive.)

We thought little Tristan would be born a week before the due date, which was Monday. Sophie’s waters were low and so we thought he’d be induced. Well when that day came, everything was normally! He wasn’t coming out early.

Sophie started to get a bit potty at home, not able to do much, waiting for him to come. The due date, 18th June, came and went. Tristan was doing fine and was not going to come then.

Sophie’s blood pressure started to rise. But still, he did not want to come. So we decided it was better to induce the birth and it was all planned for Friday morning. So Thursday comes: 21st June, Summer solstice, first day of summer (if you go by the French), Midsummer night, the day when lots of pagans dance naked in the sunrise… we get all the stuff ready, travel all the way over to Grannies with Alice, our three year old daughter,… when Sophie starts to get contractions. The day before he was to be induced, he decides to come out! I told you he must have a wicked sense of humour.

A slightly mad dash across the M50 (not too busy at 9pm on Thursday night btw), arrived in the hospital with Sophie dilated about 2cm. In about an hour, 5cms. He really was coming now. At about 11pm, the epidural started to take effect on Sophie.

Alice had been a completely different kettle of fish. She came out early after being induced. Sophie’s blood pressure had been very high and there had been protein in her urine. And the labour was long, I think 8 hours or so. And in the end she had to be suctioned out. She came out screaming, with red hair. This time I was able to watch his little head push through. He started to appear, I think, around 11.30 or so, half an hour to midnight. And…

Tristan popped out at 11.48pm, 12 minutes to go. He didn’t have much hair and we couldn’t tell the colour. Instead of screaming… he just went for a sleep. That’s my boy!

Update: Sophie has corrected me on a number of details.

1. Tristan’s due date was actual the Tuesday 19th June (2007), not Monday the 18th.
2. Alice’s labour took a total of 12 hours, not the 8 that I was present for…
3. Alice was delivered used a forceps after the suction failed.

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Okay, I promised some details. He was born at 23:48, 21st June. He’s a boy. We’re calling him Tristan. 4 hours labour. He weights 3.22kg. Story to follow…

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Details to follow later…

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