Mean Dad

Sometimes I'm a mean dad.

Not mean in a physically hurtful, or even an emotionally vicious way, but in a petty, intransigent manner. Willfully, ignorantly mean.

There are times, I must uneasily confess, that I don't feel like catering to my son's myriad needs, times I would rather ignore his demands, even when they are not minor or irrelevant. On occasion I will deliberately provoke a response from him, tease him, when I know he doesn't want to be teased and has no tolerance of it, like throwing rocks at a zoo animal just to get it to move. Once in a while, I'll say something that I know (through long experience) will provoke a tearful spate or a problem...or use a tone of voice that I know will upset him.

I think that parenting is possibly one of the most demanding experiences of your life. It pulls more out of you then I think you even are capable of detecting or realizing, forcing you to draw on reserves and depths of will and emotion that otherwise might not be plumbed...and at times I suspect it hauls out of those depths some of the more petty and unpleasant aspects of your personality that, in your perpetually drained state, you don't control or detect until, like the edge of some invisible precipice, you've already traversed the edge.

I don't know why I act on occasion like a mean dad. It rare, but it is there. Yes, everyone can have short bouts of temper and becoming a parent certainly doesn't mean you can always control your emotions or that you can walk through life in some perfect Fred McMurrey fugue-state. It is trade-offs, exhaustion, perpetual worry, huge emotional highs and often a long, low simmering burn...and the relentless march of routine and growth. The occasional manifestation of meaness is probably part and parcel of the package. I doubt that any parent can walk the tightrope forever without stumbling at times, the key thing is to recognize the tumbles...and to acknowledge them, not necessarily to prevent them all outright, as I think anyone who thinks they can walk through life with perfection in parenting is dreaming in technicolor.

I feel guilty when I am mean to my son. Not when he accuses me in his sobbing voice of being "a Big Meanie" because that generally occurs when I have transgressed what he views as a seriously important issue - like denying him more computer time or not allowing him to watch a particular cartoon show. For small children I suspect that every transgression by a parent, however minor, is a capital crime in their eyes, a little fall from grace (grace being interpreted as the state whereby you do everything they want, when they want it).

I feel guilty when I act deliberately mean...I know my own transgressions far better then anyone else and after those momentary lapses I am filled with remorse and anger at myself and, in a very tiny way, deep, deep inside, a small measure of vicious self-satisfaction. I don't know what motivates this reaction. Perhaps it is the momentary, petty backlash of having subjugated your life to the necessities of another surging to the foreground.

I love my son immensely, more than anything in this world...but on occasion I'm mean to him. And I can't really tell why.

Maybe everyone has a little bit of Big Meanie buried in them, a little stain on their soul that pops out when they least expect it...I hope not. I know that I don't want to be mean to my son and my hope is, that by trying to drag this thing out into the daylight, I'll be better equipped to be the Not Mean Dad I want to be...first and foremost.

This still doesn't mean he gets to watch all the TV he wants...A Not Mean Dad still has to be a Dad first and foremost. He needs to sometimes say no...and make it stick. ...but not to be mean about it.

Comments are always welcome. You can reach me at dadchronicles(at)hotmail.com.