Unappreciated Dad Moments
We have a few catchphrases in our house. Some I’ve explained on this site already. Others will have to wait for another day. I imagine most families have some oft-repeated utterances. Or at least I hope we’re not the only family with a host of “dad’isms” that embarrass and annoy the kids. For example, whenever we have to loop back around somewhere in the car because I’ve missed a turn or my navigator misinforms me of the route (normally the former), I’ll repeat one of the quotes from the infamous 1985 classic European Vacation: “Look kids! Big Ben…Parliament!”
In fact, one of my most memorable “Dad Moves” took place a few years back when we were actually in London and while trying to operate a left-hand drive manual (Crazy!), I realized we were about to come upon those two very landmarks. I told my wife and kids to “Get ready!” As we turned the corner and Big Ben and Parliament appeared out the car window, I yelled, “LOOK KIDS! BIG BEN…PARLIAMENT!” They were not impressed. I was ecstatic! My parenting adventure almost felt complete at that moment. Alas, it was not.
Parenting is a Team Sport
Another catch phrase we often use is a bit more meaningful, “Parenting is a team sport.” Now I know there are many single parents out there who do a fantastic job going sans partner. I was raised by a single mom for several years before she landed a great guy that became my dad. However, I also know most of those single moms and dads wished they had a reliable, loving partner with whom to co-parent. Let’s face it, parenting is hard, and it’s even harder by yourself.
Even when both parents are in-step and on the same proverbial page, things can get tricky at home. What’s nice about parenting is usually the kids arrive one at a time so the two of you can learn the ropes together with just one child. (If you’re a dad of multiple births, just close this window out and have a drink on me. We’ll see you next week.) The amount of work necessary to raise that little ball of goodness is insane when you think about it! What other eight-pound object requires so much damn work to nurture, feed, and maintain? Maybe a tactical nuke? Nope. Not even close.
So after baby #1, we get our parenting qualifications, and the dad “sway” becomes automatic. We think, “Yah, I’m down for another!” and the wife tells you one day she’s pregnant again. We think, “We’ve got this covered.” Until baby #2 arrives and now we’re forced to play man-to-man defense because there are two of us (parents) and two of them (kiddos). Yet, the basics are the same with just less sleep for everyone since two little ones need feeding, bathing, changing, reading, and loving in general. Is less sleep even possible?
Superhero Parenting
Now for the big jump. In fact, the next step is what sets mere parenting apart from super-powers-needed parenting – three kids. Or more. You see, when the kids now outnumber the parents, you have no choice but to turn to that battle-tested parenting technique known in sports as the zone defense. Simply stated, when the number of kids outnumbers the parents you had best get adept at playing zone defense or risk having the asylum overrun by the patients. Parenting is always a team sport and especially when there are more kids than parents!
Parents with more than three kids know how to play zone defense whether they realize it or not so these techniques might be old news for some. Whether you’re an old pro at the zone defense like my colleague at work who has seven, going on eight, kids (and who is always tired by the way) or a family thinking about transitioning from the realm of two kids to even more chaos, these tips to parenting as a team sport are meant to encourage and humor.
Practice the basics.
I grew up playing team sports. While the sports may have been extremely different, one of the commonalities was coaches emphasized learning and mastering the basics.
Similarly, in parenting there are some basics we have to develop in our players (kids) as well. Now, these apply even if you have just one child, but in families playing zone defense, they are more critical because your home is a microcosm of society with varying attitudes, demeanors, and personalities. These basics help everyone get along better and prepare children for success in the real game of life.
All players in the family need to understand manners matter. Simple terms like “please” and “thank you” help keep interactions civil and teach kids human communication is much more pleasant when manners are present. They also lead to an essential underlying value to respect others. When parenting as a team, kids can watch how mom and dad respect one another and how they apply that principle when acting towards others inside and outside the family team.
Another basic that contributes to a successful zone defense is valuing people. In the finite space of a home with several voices, there is bound to be some competition for parents’ time and attention, not to mention for resources like Oreo cookies or Xbox games. Parents that teach and practice valuing people, first their family members and later people outside the team, reinforce the idea that people have intrinsic value. This is especially true when teaching kids about valuing people different than themselves. It’s easy to accept people wearing the same jersey, but what about those who are playing a different sport altogether?
Emphasize you’re all on the same team.
There will come a time when the zone defense is breaking down, and the players on the team are starting to bicker and fight. It may get so bad that a player yells they wish they were never a part of the team. As a parent, that hurts. It’s also the time to remind everyone – even ourselves at times – that this is the team you were meant to have. And that no matter how terrible things get, there are no trades or free agents on your team.
During these times when the team looks more like a gaggle of lost cricket players trying to throw a football (the American kind), it is imperative the coaches/parents remind everyone how vital teamwork is for everyone’s sake. If things are really rough, you may even need to remind them you’re playing the same sport. This gets even more imperative as the kids get older and start to develop their own personalities, interests, and hobbies that likely vary from what the rest of the family is pursuing.
As our oldest child approached the end of high school it was not uncommon for him to hunker down in his room with the door closed when he wasn’t at work, school or practice. Occasionally we had to remind him he was still a part of the team, which meant we wanted him around at times. It also meant he had an obligation to contribute to the team’s success, not just his own.
The other time this tip comes in handy is when the team has suffered a significant loss. This could look like one of its members lashing out at other players or a family stressor like having to move or losing a beloved family pet. By reminding the family that you’re all on the same team reassures everybody of your commitment to them and to the family. There’s no better feeling like knowing your family is behind you, for you, and with you no matter what the issue might be.
Remind each other parenting is a team sport.
Similar to reminding the whole family that you’re a team, it’s critical to regularly reassure your co-coach that this grand endeavor called parenting is a team sport. In other words, you remind your partner you’ve got her back, and she has yours. This is the essence of parenting as a team whether you’re playing a zone defense or a quick match-up of one-on-one.
Sometimes mom or dad seems to forget you’re in it together. This can take several shapes. It can look like dad spending too much time at work or with the guys instead of being home to help with dinner and homework. It can look like mom being so focused on the kids she forgets she’s a wife as well with a husband who covets her respect, admiration, and intimacy. The key to this element is not to nag or pester. Communicate with words, hand and arm signals, or perhaps even a post-game press conference. Get creative and remember you are parenting as a TEAM.
Moms & dads must work off the same play book.
When parenting as a team, working the zone-defense and reminding one another you’re in it together, it’s also essential to shoulder the burden together. For example, be wary of making one parent the “heavy”, so the other one does not have to deal with discipline or the unpleasant parts of parenting. Many a mom has uttered, “Wait until your father gets home!” after a child as done fill-in-the-blank. Used sparingly I suppose there’s some utility in this approach, but if the mom (or dad) defers all discipline to the other partner the children will exploit the disparity, and the zone defense will collapse.
Similarly, parents must remember they are co-coaches and not the players’ agents. This does not mean parents are not advocates for their kids – of course they are! It just means they must be parents who require their kids’ respect built on a relationship of love and trust. In families with several kids, this also means sometimes saying no to some activities and events. A parent who sees themselves as their children’s agent will drive to multiple practices and events five nights a week because their kids’ wanted to try a new sport every year or play club ball, but they cannot remember the last time the family had dinner together or a weekend to sleep in and make pancakes.
Highlight star performances.
In the course of parenting as a team sport, it is inevitable that the team – the kiddos – makes some great plays. Highlight the superstars and their star performances. For healthy families, this is another no-brainer. When one of your kids makes a big catch, participates in the school play, gets good grades, or shows exceptional kindness, celebrate it. The key here is knowing your players and what a star performance looks like.
We have four kids. One of them is very academically challenged. For her, a star performance is a “B” in every class. For the others, a “B” is good, but not great because we know they are capable of straight As. This does not mean we have different standards to determine “star performance”; it means we define exceptional based on the child’s abilities, talents, and work ethic.
Parents who parent as a team sport know their kids will continue to perform well when they have been rewarded appropriately for positive behavior. Likewise, in large families with more kids than parents, celebrating star performances shows the other family members positive achievements get rewarded, and negative behavior does not. Grab donuts before school for them, let them pick the movie for the night, or dare even post their accomplishment on social media.
Embrace different skills sets.
Big families, defined here as more kids than parents, must also embrace that mom and dad have differences that can be an asset to good coaching / parenting. Playing zone defense as needed does not require each parent to assume identical roles or act identically. In basketball, for example, playing zone defense means putting your big players in the middle and “down low” by the basket with your guards “up top” and on the wings to maximize their respective strengths.
In large families, parents must also play to their strengths. For example, in our family, my wife is much better at the family finances than me. This means I should be doing the dishes some nights or taking care of bedtime chores for the kids when they were little so she can work on the budget and bills. Play to your strengths.
The same idea goes for the kids. A family, like a team, is going to be comprised of members who have unique gifting, talents, and skills. An eleven-man football team or a five-woman basketball team needs different skills to win a game. So goes a family. If one of the kids is younger, but more responsible, perhaps they are the one you entrust with starting dinner before the parents get home. If an older sibling can drive and you’re short on milk for breakfast, guess who gets sent to the store?
These are all no-brainers for parents with older kids so the lesson here is to see in each of your children unique gifting you can celebrate to contribute to the overall success of the family.
Make time to simply play as a family.
When the kids are young and little, life can sometimes feel like you’re stuck in survival mode. This is magnified when you have multiple kids in diapers or sitting in high chairs. It takes all you have just to get them fed, bathed, and in bed every night only to repeat the day’s chaos tomorrow. As they get a little older though it’s important to find a standard playing field upon which you can all truly play. This is the place memories get made.
When I was in middle school our blended family of six would head to the local park and play a mean game of “wiffle” baseball. (For those unfamiliar with the term, it uses a plastic ball with holes throughout and a skinny yellow plastic bat.) After the games were over, we would head down to the local ice cream shop, and all get a cone of our favorite treat. Looking back I honestly can’t remember if we did this one time or twenty, but to this day it is one of my favorite memories of us playing as a family.
For my kids, they’ll often recount a time when we were taking a vacation in Scotland and played “freeze-tag” after breakfast. (We were stationed in Germany at the time so don’t think we’re jet-setting around the globe!) We were staying in 16th Century castle-like tower, and they remember playing tag outside on the grass. Why? Because it was family time and we were playing together.
Parenting older kids is still a team sport
As our kids have gotten older, playing as a family has become more of a challenge. The kids get older, develop their own interests, and have increasingly competing demands on their time. We have found a cure to combat this for the most part – camping. For our team, camping has become a fantastic memory-maker. We bought a used travel trailer and truck a few years ago, and now we spend our holidays and breaks settling into a campsite and acting like a family. We focus on quality time together complete with board games, campfires, and hikes. Something unusual happens when we’re camping – we seem to just coexist a whole lot better.
Families in which there are more kids than parents can definitely be a challenge. Even so, we have found we are quite accustomed to a certain level of chaos in the home. When even one of the kids is missing from the dinner table, we can tell something is missing. This became readily apparent when our oldest went off to college a year ago. We had to get used to counting three heads in the car instead of four. We had to acclimate to calling just three hungry kids to the dinner table. I’m not sure we’re really used to it at all in fact.
Closing Thoughts
With three teenage girls in the house, we’re still parenting as a team sport. In some ways, it’s much easier – there are no sippy cups involved for one. Yet, in other ways, it remains a challenge to have three children, with one in college, and only two parents. Transportation gets more complicated, not less, as they get older for example. And with three young ladies plus mom, I am clearly outnumbered. A neutered cat doesn’t count as a back-up.
I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I love being a dad, and I love being outnumbered. I’ll parent as a team and play zone defense as long as I can, and hopefully, the team shows up with grandkids to outnumber us even more someday.
Until next time – Cheers,
Jeff
