Part Three
Being Dad in the
Peer Years
Chapter Sixteen
Being a Dad That Deals with Sibling Issues
Most
brothers are not the kindest of individuals to one another. I’ve heard of brothers that physically beat each
other up even into adulthood, be it as it may.
Other brothers put each other down incessantly. Some brothers compete with each other
fiercely in everything. My brother and I
were no exceptions to this common trait among brothers.
One
time my brother, John, was so angry with me that he took a kitchen knife and
carved my name into the Plexiglas door on our microwave. He apparently thought that Mom and Dad would
read the huge D-A-V-I-D in the door and I would get into big trouble. Needless to say that one backfired in a
matter of minutes once they figured out I hadn’t done it. If that wasn’t bad enough, another time he
took a knife and started to come after ME with it! Before you think this was all one sided—I had
my share of guilty times too. Older
brothers like me are just a little smarter about the kinds of ways to get at
the younger ones. Sometimes I would make
faces at him when he was getting in trouble, which caused him to nearly blow
his stack and just get in deeper trouble.
My favorite trick was to get really close to him, perhaps even draping a
brotherly love arm over his shoulder, and to whisper to him, “you’re the
biggest baby I’ve ever seen” and then I would run away, pushing chairs in his
pursuant path and locking doors behind me.
But by far our most epic battles occurred in the back seat of our
oft-traveling father’s car.
Back-Seat
Brawls
Most
kids tell stories of their Dads warning to pull over the car if they don’t stop
acting out. We pushed things to the
limit so much that I remember several times that Dad actually did pull over and
remove his belt on the interstate.
Having different sides as our “turf” was always the proscribed remedy by
our mother. She would pull the center
seat-belt across the bench seat and that was deemed the sibling de-militarized zone.
You couldn’t cross that line because that was the boundary. Of course, just like a
wartime DMZ that line became the source of our squabbles from then
on. I would place a hand across the line
in a noticeable and flaunting way, and then my brother would push a shoe or a
belt buckle hard into my hand and then claim he was safe because the violent
incident took place on what was his side.
Often he would dangle a hand over my trying-to-sleep face and say in a
stupid voice, “I’m nooot touchinggggg
yoouuuuu!” One
of these times I had endured enough and simply punched him square in the
sternum, knocking the wind out of him so bad that he couldn’t even cry
effectively. We pulled over at the next
underpass because of that one.
One
time I thought I would pull a fast one on John with the whole boundary
thing. I convinced him that I wanted to lay down on the floor of the car, because it was so very comfortable. I traded him two action-figures (by the way,
Dad, they are always called action-figures and never dolls!) for the rest of
the day to play with in order to receive this perceived luxury. So I
plopped down in the gully of the back seat of that Caprice Classic, the middle
of which had a horribly huge hump that had all the comforts of lying flat on
the back of a moving camel. But I faked
it good—even sold it by grabbing a pillow and acting like I was asleep and as
content as a bug in a rug. Of course the
jealousy I had counted on in my brother began to take over. He started complaining to Mom about the
situation, clamoring to get a turn on the floor of the car. Just like my devious older-brother mind had
planned, he was eventually begging me to trade with him. I did, of course, after bargaining for
several action-figures, tapes to play on my walkman and all three pillows for
the rest of the day.
Apparently
he was so misled by my acting job before then that he actually enjoyed being
down there sprawled out over the middle-hump in the car. My plan had worked flawlessly, and I stretched
out on the cushiony seat with all the pleasures a grade school boy could dream
of. But the big smile on John’s face
made me wonder if I had been double-crossed by my own plan. His contentment hadn’t been a part of my
equation
Stopping
a Sibling Showdown
As
you might imagine, by the time I was seventeen this situation had become rather
untenable. Even though I was done with
high-school and was about to enter college, my brother and I were still acting
like we were first-graders, which was considerably more immature for me than
for him, being five years his elder. It
didn’t make sense for me, as a six-foot-tall-teenager who shaved daily, to be
acting like that with my brother. But my
parents were long on patience, until one trip we made out west—which was to be
the last with the four of us living under one roof. My brother was going through the particularly
rough years of Jr. High and I was a mixture of aloof and irritated by him on
the whole trip. By the time we had
gotten to
Our
usual antics had continued across the country, but Dad’s response had not been
the usual punishments or threats of pulling the car over. Instead, he just looked tired of it all,
feeling his middle-age. Dad told me
about the tough times that John was having at his new school. He told me how much it hurt him to have me
treat him poorly. He let me know that I
was acting a lot younger and more immature than he expected of me. And he told me that I should begin to have an
intentionally positive influence on my brother.
What he
said was not quite as significant as the way he said it. He treated me like young man—like a friend
almost, that he was just disappointed in.
He didn’t scold me like child;
he respected me treated me like a peer
with a problem. My father knew that
there comes a point when you need to deal with your children as peers. He also knew that being Dad means tackling
the heart of sibling problems. From that
day on two things happened: 1) I started to invest in my brother, mending the
years of separation our sibling behavior had caused, and 2) Dad treated me more
like a fellow man, or peer, than a kid.
For
a moment let’s consider how we deal with our children as siblings:
“Being
Dad means tackling the heart of sibling problems.”
What
can I do to help my kids understand how to treat each other?
Chapter Seventeen
Being a Dad that Can Confront His Kid
There
is often a point in people’s life that one perceives as the “turning point” in
their journey. Part of being a father is
making sure you’re there for your kids when they reach that point—because of
the two roads that diverge that day, one is usually preferable in the long run,
and kids need a wise voice in their lives to help see the right path. This is true even if they choose a path you
wouldn’t, because eventually they may have a chance to switch roads and your
wise words way back will mean even more after the fact—hindsight being 20/20
for prodigal sons and daughters.
My
turning point came in college. This is
not surprising to most that have entered those supposedly hallowed halls of
learning, only to discover that college is often a string of pearls consisting
of videogames, all-nighters, pizza, parties, and all forms of goofing off known
to man. It is a concrete fact that all
sports that have no real point or goal have been invented on a college campus,
from Hacky-sack to Frisbee. Juniors and seniors often relate the meaning
of the word “sophomore,” to their younger plebes, gloating that it means no
less than “wise fool.” If this were the
case with any second year student, it was with me, especially the second part.
One
weekend that year demonstrated my foolishness in living color. My parents were leaving town with my brother
and I was commissioned to come home from college and housesit for them. This was an important job for several reasons
beyond just getting the mail and feeding our many animals on our old farmland. My father’s mother lived with us at the time
and even though she lived in an independent apartment attached to our house she
still needed a little bit of attention.
I was paid for the weekend to go get her paper down at the main street
each morning, and then spend a few meals with her, while also checking in on
her throughout the day—doing things she needed done as a sick and elderly woman
alone.
As
many 19-year-old guys faced with the opportunity of hanging out in a large
house with no strings attached, my wheels started turning. I made every endeavor to reassure my parents
that I’d do the job well, and then I planned privately to take my college
girlfriend down to the house and have a romantic dinner together and possibly
watch some movies as though we had this great house to ourselves. In the hubbub of picking her up from the
school an hour away, and taking her back, I basically did none of the jobs I
had committed to do. The animals went
unfed, the mail stayed in the mailbox till the last day, and Grandma got all
her papers at once on the final day. I
visited her for only brief moments when coming in and out of town. I dropped the ball—big time.
Now
this was a poor showing by me, for sure, but many fathers would have written it
off as simple “stupid college guy” antics and kept the promised money to make a
point. Instead, my Dad sent me the wad
of cash inside a six-page letter. The
letter confronted me in the strongest language possible, and put the question
to me simply: “what path will you choose?”
He explained in that letter that my head wasn’t screwed on right at that
time and that I was going three or four different directions with my life and
needed to decide to shape up and become a responsible man. He phrased it all in that peer-fathering tone
he’d begun to use since I was 17. He was
not only disappointed in me, he was shocked that I would do it all without a
thought of my own irresponsibility.
Putting
the Question
I
was so full of shame and guilt from that confrontation that it forced me to
look inside myself for the first time in several years. Dad likely saw this confrontation coming,
noting little issues in his head that pointed to a path in my life that was not
the best. But he never mentioned anything
until that letter, and he poured it all on in one confrontation, saying, “You
don’t have to respond to this letter with me—but you do have to respond with
your life. Which path will you
choose?” He apparently knew that being
Dad means confronting your kid when they take the wrong path.
Shortly
after the letter from Dad I broke up with that girlfriend for good, threw
myself into my college studies and got a job.
And a few months later I experienced the most solid calling from God on
my life that I’ve experienced. It was a
turning point. Two paths diverged in the
wood—and Dad was there with his wisdom compass.
But more than just being there, he knew how to confront his kid in a way
that made the turning point a permanent one.
For
a moment think about your ability to confront your kid:
“Being
Dad means confronting your kid when they take the wrong path.”
How
can I be ready to confront my kid at that pivotal moment in his or her life?
Chapter Eighteen
Being a Dad that Comes to the Rescue
Once
I left the house I really left the house.
I didn’t go back on the weekends much and didn’t spend any college
summers at home. I wasn’t really a
homebody. So on the “letting go of your
child” scale I certainly helped out my parents by never being around once I
turned 18. In fact, my parents took all
my stuff out of my old room and boxed it up—and that room became decorated with
lacy, flowery things, transforming my teenage jock room into a bed-n-breakfast
style guest room.
I
was on my own in many ways—and could handle life’s problems and decisions
without much help. But I was not really
a full adult yet. You know the type—a tweener of sorts—that have many of the outward signs of
adulthood, but are still very immature in some respects. You can have a car, a home to live in, even a
fiancé, and still be very much a large boy or girl inside. This was true for me. I was to be married two months after school,
and I was making one of the biggest decisions of my life and now it would
affect not only me, but the woman I had chosen to marry.
I
had been pursuing an opportunity to move to Washington D.C. to work with a few
friends of mine who were all planning to move there and start and church and
life cool metropolitan lives that involved a lot of hanging out in coffee
shops. The time to pull the trigger on
moving was approaching and I knew that I needed to make plans to move or do
something else. The only problem is that
the head guy going wouldn’t make a decision.
He would never nail down his plans and would never give me a date on
when he was planning to go. And the more
I talked to him of it the more I realized that I was going to have to move
there first—with my new bride all by ourselves in a city we had only visited
once waiting for the cavalry to arrive so we could have the life promised us.
Going
to Dad for Advice
During
this process there came a point at which I asked Dad for advice. I was really searching and could go either
way on the decision. The next day Dad
drove up the hour to my college and took me out to lunch. We mapped out my options on a napkin like we
had done hundreds of times before on so many smaller issues. He helped me realize what I really wanted to
do—which was move away to Boston and go to school with my new wife… starting a
life of our own not dependent on my old college buddies or either of our
families.
Even
more, Dad made clear to me that I needed to “get out” of the current plans I
was involved in quickly and decisively.
He started to act a bit like a political “spin doctor” for me there in
the restaurant, encouraging me to simultaneously resign from the project to
several people, including my friend and partner. The plan involved e-mailing the letter to one
General Director, faxing the letter to the District Supervisor who happened to
be in
Only
a few years later I realized what Dad was doing—and I was glad I followed his
advice. He was coming to the rescue for
me. He knew that it would look really
bad to back out of the project which I had been such a crucial part. He instinctively knew what was eventually
found to be true—that none of the others would go if I pulled out—and that I
would be labeled as the one that pulled the plug on it in the end if I didn’t
crisply and simply state why I was resigning from the project in the first place. This became even more important in the
following years as I worked for some of the same people who got the resignation
letters back when I was only 21 years old.
Mixed
Emotions
I
now wonder how Dad must have felt in those weeks. Did he have that typical Dad feeling of “I
need to speak my mind to him but I don’t want to influence his decision?” Did he wonder if he just needed to “let the
chips fall where they may” and let me go whatever direction I chose? In the end I believe that letting go of our
children is certainly a major hurdle we Dad’s must face. But likewise, once we’ve let go, it can be
difficult to intercede for that child again when they really need it. In the case above and in many cases our kids
face in young adulthood, they actually do need us to intercede and help them
through it all. They don’t need us
nagging them everyday about doing this and that. They do
need us when so very much of their future is riding on their decisions. Too often we Dad’s get it
backwards—preferring to be a continual nag rather than a wise counselor when
our kids need it.
Let’s
evaluate ourselves against this statement:
“Being
Dad means being a wise
counselor instead of a constant nag.”
How
can I limit my nagging and increase my wise counsel?
©2004 David Drury
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