You could be really going through it. You could be going through it at work or with your health. You could be in the middle of something with your own parents. You could be at your absolute lowest.
And your kids?
They’d pick up on none of it. Tears could be running down your face, you could look like hell, and they’d want to know why dinner is late. They’d wake you up from the sleep you desperately need to ask where the iPad charger is, even though they passed another parent on the way to do so. “Here are the children coming, finishing with their running around,” says the nurse in Euripides’ play, Medea (copies available here), “their mother’s troubles don’t enter their heads; grief knows no place in a child’s mind.” And their mother had some pretty considerable troubles—her husband had tossed her aside for a younger, prettier woman, and the King of Corinth had exiled her from her home.
That’s just how it goes. Our kids are perfectly selfish in this way and that’s how it’s supposed to be. They’re not supposed to be stressed about our problems or the problems of the world—not yet, anyway. It’s our job to bear that weight. It’s our job not to take their insensitivity personally. They’ve got a lot on their plate, too (it’s hard to be a kid, we always forget).
If anything, we should let them cheer us up and distract us. What a reminder it is that not everyone is as miserable as us, not everyone is brooding about the past or worried about the future. They’re just existing. They’re focused on the now. They’re not yet cynical or angry. Good for them. Let them enjoy it while it lasts.
And as for us, we can help ourselves deal with whatever’s going on in our own world through journaling (it’s a daily practice for me, one which I can’t recommend highly enough).
When it comes to family and fatherhood specifically, I’ve been using our new leatherbound Daily Dad Five Year Reflection Journal. The prompts guide you through ideas and questions that challenge you, that make you think about how you parent, and that help you learn to be more fully present with your kids. It’s meant to last—not just for the five years when you write one line per day in response to the prompts—but to help you remember these chaotic and wonderful times while they’re still young.
