I'm a Bad Dad....

Confession time: I'm a bad dad. I'll tell you why.
https://youtu.be/HaNQ04ENCyc


- The Clean Shaver

Hey TCS, I know you didn't want any schmaltzy support or what not but I want to tell you that from what I saw you're a pretty good dad. I hope you balance things out because if you let the voice in your head only beat you up for your short comings, thats a lot of beatings. It takes raising kids to truly illuminate our own shortcomings to ourselves. Its hard, as you said, the hardest thing you've ever had to do to raise kids. You want them healthy, happy well adjusted, challenged. You want to protect them from all harm. Most of the time they're not cooperating with you. They're kids, they live in the moment driven by their wants, needs and desires. As parents we have to impose the structure of discipline until they are able to discipline themselves. You mention your own father as being a good dad and you obviously draw on that experience to guide you, in my own case I use my memories of my own father to guide me to not be the type of father he was. No physical abuse no emotional abuse. Try hard to be kind, loving and encouraging. Was I perfect? No. Nobody is, we all make mistakes but we try to be better. Your kids will come to see you as a loving father who was a human being and wasn't perfect. My kids are 19 and 21 now and they're both away at university. I love them and miss them like crazy. I think my wife and I did a pretty good job but there were moments man, there were moments....

We owe it to our kids to be healthy and happy too, we have to take care of ourselves because we far too often let the weight of the world and our responsibilities grind us down. Look at the good too - story from my own experience. A few months back i was rushing around trying to get stuff down and was running on a razor thin schedule to get to my training session (yeah first world problems) so I make a turn on a road and boom, freight train at a level crossing in the middle of the day. No way out I'm stuck and its moving sloooow... I get to my workout about 10 minutes late and I've got a dark cloud over my head, this stuff always happens to me like dropping your soap in the sink. I'm on the stationary bike warming up and feeling sorry for myself and this young woman walks by right in front of me and she has one leg. A prosthetic leg. I look up and say thank you for putting my problems in perspective. I guess with the passage of time I wasn't getting the message clearly enough because yesterday I was dragging my achy body into the gym again feeling a bit down and standing right there when I walk in is a guy with TWO prosthetic legs!! OK, I think I get it now. Relax, chill out and be thankful for the blessings we have. Life isn't perfect and neither are we and if we all treat ourselves and one another with a little more compassion, things would be better.

Thank you,
Mark

Thanks for taking the time to watch and respond. I appreciate it, Mark.