Being a dad, learning and teaching

Things I learned from my dad, in chronological order

These sorts of posts help me understand the lessons I am teaching our kids every day, often just by how I interact with them and what they observe about my behavior and my relationships with their mom and other people we come across.

19.  Don’t wait for the right moment to say I love you. Now is that moment.

At the same time, these posts also take me back to my relationship with my dad who passed away almost 12 years ago (coincidentally, also from pancreatic cancer). I think back to the things I learned from him, his experiences and how much more I understand them now that I have children of my own.

I think I make mistakes far more often than I get it right (whatever that is) but I hope that even when I make mistakes, our kids learn something positive from how I handle those mistakes. Sometimes that is the best we can do as parents, I think. That missing “How to be an awesome parent” manual still hasn’t been published so we’re all mostly figuring it out as we go.

Being a dad is a full-time, contact sport except its most about making sure your kids always win (or as much as possible) in this little game we call “Life”.