What’s It Like Being A Dad? – IOTW Report

What’s It Like Being A Dad?

Monday, 30 December 2019, 17:45 MJA Uncategorized 18

Teaching your teenager to drive, giving your kid’s pet fish a funeral, explaining the birds and the bees, playing catch—-fatherhood isn’t something that happens all at once. It’s a day in day out choice to show up for your kids. So…how much time you got?

18 Comments on What’s It Like Being A Dad?

  1. Don’t remember any of those moments…

    How come they didn’t show the one where you’re cleaning a pistol at the kitchen counter when he picks up your daughter for a date. They tell me that all their friends are still scared shitless of me.

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  3. The most memorable thing my dad ever said to me (when I was about six): “Abigail, you’re so smart and talented, you’re going to be able to do wonderful things with your life when you grow up.” It was just what a six year-old girl, who feels completely unable and too small in a big world, needs to hear, dads.

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  6. Parenthood (whether mothers or fathers) is definitely “one day at a time”. Take lots of pictures through the years ( for blackmail later on or for having a good cry when you take them to college).

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  7. My dad loved me so much he must have hit about a zillion tennis balls to me and never acted bored out his mind. He also professed not to care about my horses, but I caught him bringing the lawn clippings to them and scratching their ears and talking to them. 💞😁

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  9. 10 Rules for dating my daughter:
    Rule One
    If you pull into my driveway and honk you’d better be delivering a package, because you’re sure not picking anything up.

    Rule Two
    You do not touch my daughter in front of me. You may glance at her, so long as you do not peer at anything below her neck. If you cannot keep your eyes or hands off of my daughter’s body, I will remove them.

    Rule Three
    I am aware that it is considered fashionable for boys of your age to wear their trousers so loosely that they appear to be falling off their hips. Please don’t take this as an insult, but you and all of your friends are complete idiots. Still, I want to be fair and open minded about this issue, so I propose his compromise: You may come to the door with your underwear showing and your pants ten sizes too big, and I will not object. However, in order to ensure that your clothes do not, in fact, come off during the course of your date with my daughter, I will take my electric nail gun and fasten your trousers securely in place to your waist.

    Rule Four
    I’m sure you’ve been told that in today’s world, sex without utilizing a “barrier method” of some kind can kill you. Let me elaborate, when it comes to sex, I am the barrier, and I will kill you.

    Rule Five
    It is usually understood that in order for us to get to know each other, we should talk about sports, politics, and other issues of the day. Please do not do this. The only information I require from you is an indication of when you expect to have my daughter safely back at my house, and the only word I need from you on this subject is “early.”

    Rule Six
    I have no doubt you are a popular fellow, with many opportunities to date other girls. This is fine with me as long as it is okay with my daughter. Otherwise, once you have gone out with my little girl, you will continue to date no one but her until she is finished with you. If you make her cry, I will make you cry.

    Rule Seven
    As you stand in my front hallway, waiting for my daughter to appear, and more than an hour goes by, do not sigh and fidget. If you want to be on time for the movie, you should not be dating. My daughter is putting on her makeup, a process that can take longer than painting the Golden Gate Bridge. Instead of just standing there, why don’t you do something useful, like changing the oil in my car?

    Rule Eight
    The following places are not appropriate for a date with my daughter: Places where there are beds, sofas, or anything softer than a wooden stool. Places where there are no parents, policemen, or nuns within eyesight. Places where there is darkness. Places where there is dancing, holding hands, or happiness. Places where the ambient temperature is warm enough to induce my daughter to wear shorts, tank tops, midriff T-shirts, or anything other than overalls, a sweater, and a goose down parka – zipped up to her throat. Movies with a strong romantic or sexual theme are to be avoided; movies which features chain saws are okay. Hockey games are okay. Old folks homes are better.

    Rule Nine
    Do not lie to me. I may appear to be a pot-bellied, balding, middle-aged, dim- witted has-been. But on issues relating to my daughter, I am the all-knowing, merciless god of your universe. If I ask you where you are going and with whom, you have one chance to tell me the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I have a shotgun, a shovel, and five acres behind the house. Do not trifle with me.

    Rule Ten
    Be afraid. Be very afraid. It takes very little for me to mistake the sound of your car in the driveway for a chopper coming in over a rice paddy near Hanoi. When my Agent Orange starts acting up, the voices in my head frequently tell me to clean the guns as I wait for you to bring my daughter home. As soon as you pull into the driveway you should exit your car with both hands in plain sight. Speak the perimeter password, announce in a clear voice that you have brought my daughter home safely and early, then return to your car – there is no need for you to come inside. The camouflaged face at the window is mine.

    That is my only girl right there. She is my pride and joy and I love her with all my heart, so if you get any ideas about dancing, and hugging, and kissing, just remember this, I aint afraid to go back to prison!

    14

  11. I am currently reading Dad’s Maybe Book by Tim O’Brien about the letters that he wrote his 2 sons Timmy and Tad as they were growing up over the past 15 or more years. It is a very good, funny book about his raising of his 2 sons as an older father. I have been a big fan of Tim O’Brien since I read his book The Things They Carried about his experiences as a young man and soldier during the Vietnam War. As for my 3 kids we did pretty good even with my son who a big pain in the ass for a while but turned it around after being married for nearly 10 years now with 2 little girls who have turned him into a good father who loves his daughters, he’s even starting to tell stupid dad jokes to my 3 and half year granddaughter Dylan and loving it. She’s a little blonde haired, blue eyed dynamo and knows it. God help the guys she meets 10 or more years from now because she’s going to be able to speak her mind and probably has already heard the no creep rules from my son already. My 2 daughters are good as well, my oldest daughter has 2 little girls of her own now and a good husband and will be 34 in a couple of weeks. And my youngest daughter is a preschool teacher who loves her job and her little kids. She was a special needs kid herself growing up with some handicaps but has more compassion because of that for helping little kids to learn. My wife and I did pretty darned good with the all ups and downs with our kids, good and bad times and everything else. I am very proud of all 3 of them and now my 4 little granddaughters.

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  12. Hard. Would not trade it in for anything.
    Sitting in a ice cold bathtub at 3:00 AM with your daughter who has a 105 degree temperature trying to break it. Lots of crying and not just her.
    Sledding on ice, catching and netting her first fish,teaching her to drive.
    So many good times of being a dad, too many to list.
    But the best is seeing her becoming a productive member of our great country.
    P.S. took a lot of work with her Mom also.

    5

  14. And no creeps or slackers or jerks who want only want to get into their pants. My oldest daughter slapped the snot of her first boyfriend when he tried to go too far. He also called her a bitch and that was it, I was proud of her and let her know that he deserved it. I ran into him at a grocery store one time a few years later, boy did he have an oh shit look on his face and quickly avoided me because he knew his goose was still cooked.

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  15. Anymouse
    DECEMBER 30, 2019 AT 6:13 PM

    “How come they didn’t show the one where you’re cleaning a pistol at the kitchen counter when he picks up your daughter for a date. ”

    …I don’t have a daughter, but I DID once greet a potential suiter for my young niece by pulling him aside while she was getting ready and giving him a guided tour of my knife collection, including a demonstration of how a butterfly knife worked and and an enthusiastic description of how a gut hook.could be used to unzip a man quickly from testicles to rib cage.

    Seemed like a nice kid, almost felt bad about having to tell my niece that he had to leave without saying hello because he was, like, suddenly ill or something.

    I felt pretty bad too because it must have been fatal, since she never saw or heard from him again…

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  18. Since it is my job to end threads…

    I didn’t mention the “twins” starting shooting competitively at age sixteen or there abouts. Sadly Mr. Perfection still cleaned the guns after the matches and I don’t believe to this day either of them has cleaned a weapon (32 yrs. old). They can handle the weapons and why clean them if the “Old Man” is only going to criticize the job you did. Served my daughter well when she slept with the “97′” (stoked with 00) under the bed during nursing school, but that’s another story…

    Couldn’t remember the names of any of my daughter’s suiters, so I gave them all their own names that I could remember: “white bread,” “sasquatch” (big fellow), “Chicken Mike” (liked eating at our house as his mother only cooked chicken), etc., etc. Would not acknowledge them if they didn’t respond to their new names. In almost every case I showed them how Mr. Tanfoglio was converted from 9mm to 41AE and explained how much damage the hand loaded 41 would do…

    The earlier comment above was operative in that I felt “If I can’t have your respect, I’ll take your fear.”

    Happy New Year sports fans

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