My Kids Make Me Better

I hatched a plan over thirty years ago.  The plan was to learn how to be the best dad ever.

My eldest siblings started to have children when I was quite young, so I started changing diapers as a newly minted 9 year-old uncle.  I was in the third or fourth grade and a favorite game at that age  was “My Dad Is Cooler than Your Dad”.  So there I was with diaper changing experience thinking I could at least do this part of fatherhood.  But sadly, diaper changing never came up in MDICTYD.  The game went something like this:

“My dad makes a lot of money.”

“Oh yeah? Well my dad is a policeman!”

“Oh yeah?  My dad is a surfer!”

“Oh yeah?  My dad is a doctor!”

“Oh yeah?  My dad plays the guitar!”, etc.

My dad was a tough-guy longshoreman, a crusty fisherman, and a fierce disciplinarian.  He was fifty when I was born and his glory days were behind him. So I just listened to the other kids play the game and thought, “When I am a father, my kids are going to win that game.” And as silly as it sounds, the rest of my life was dedicated to winning MDICTYD for my future kids. The plan involved this:  Learn as much about everything as possible.  Experience as much of everything as possible.

This blog is mostly about those adventures and how they’ve worked out, more or less, over the last thirty or so years.

But one person I wanted to be was a writer. A poet, actually.  And as you can tell two posts in, I’m not a very good wordsmith.  The first time I submitted a poem for competition or publication was in the 8th grade.  Dear sweet Mrs. D’Amico tried to be encouraging but eventually said “Stick with math, kid.”  Mrs. Williams in high school echoed Mrs. D’Amico.  And on and on through college and after.  I would submit the worst poems ever.  Believe me, they sucked. They’re still in numerous notebooks, journals, and self-published books.  Most girls I dated probably broke up with me just to get me to stop writing poems for them.  Their plans failed of course, because everybody knows post break-up poems are the best (worst)! I read some of them now and again.  It’s fricking embarrassing.

I also tried writing stories.  I once wrote funny updates for a company softball team.  One day I was called into HR because of those updates.  The VP of HR said I had to stop.  I told him I was unaware of a policy that prevented me from writing those updates.  He said, “You have to stop because they suck!”  Ouch.

Eventually I stopped writing.  I was just no good at it.  Writing love poems or crappy updates about my crappy adventures became just silly exercises in self-indulgence.  Nobody wanted to read any of it.  So I stopped.  Until I wrote a piece about fatherhood.  Something told me I had to submit it.  And then I got this:

Dear Troy,

Thanks so much for your recent submission to Lily. I’m pleased to inform you that “One Eye Open” has been selected for publication in Lily’s October issue. The issue is scheduled for release on Saturday, October 1. I will send you a link to preview the issue before it is released.

Thanks again. It’s an honor to have the opportunity to publish your work.

Sincerely,
Susan
Lily Editor

“An honor to have the opportunity to publish your work”.  What the hell?  I was so confused I dashed off an email asking if a mistake had been made.  The editor said while my reaction was cute and all, “Don’t ever respond to an acceptance letter like that again”.  She also mentioned that when reading some of my other work, she couldn’t quite make out “my voice”.  But in “One Eye Open” she heard it.

I wrote about my youngest son.  Sure, I also wrote about my father and me.  But my voice didn’t show up until I became a dad.  My kids made me a better writer.

They make me a better person.

What an odd shaped head.
Distracting enough from your city
roast eyes and your pinched
lips, kissing runny-nose
kisses the way your momma taught you.

They curse you by saying you’ll
grow up to be me.  With the same affinity for
calves and panty hose that I had
when I was three.  When I learned how to play
the piano teacher.

But you’ll be blessed because you will
never know the crack of a Walther PPK
or fall asleep to the rhythmic grind of
blade on whetstone.  You will sleep
with both eyes closed – unafraid of the night.

What skills do you want to acquire for fatherhood?  Post ideas to comments.