Parenting

Recently, my wife and step-daughter bought me a small BBQ for father's day. It's been used a lot and is a great gift, but I still haven't fully come to terms with the whole father part of it. I didn't meet the the spawn until she was thirteen and she's eighteen now. So it's only been five years and she had her grandfather doing far more of the father work in the years before that. He passed away shortly after we met but there is still no doubt in anyone's mind that he was more of the father figure to her.

"What's your point, dipshit?" I hear you ask, rather rudely. Due to the stupid state of economies these days, the spawn is still living at home myself and her mother. This morning, I woke her up as I was leaving for work, made her come downstairs and sort out the garbage from recycling in the blue bin then put it out. This is the third strike she's put her dirty food bags with half drank smoothies in the recycling so I figured this might make her get the hint.

Daniella's response was "you didn't yell, or shout, at her and she's an adult now so she's gotta learn." It made me realize that in that moment, I was doing the fatherly thing. BLASHPHEMY! There have definitely been "adult" males in her life previously that wouldn't have been that nice. As I've previously mentioned on the blog: If I worry about stuff like that, I will be stressed all the time.

One of the big things I get back from her in situations like that, if she's in a depressive mood (which we all get into), is that her mother and I are disappointed in her for some of these things she does. That is one thing I can safely say I have picked up as a "father" that I didn't fully understand.

People say "we will always love our kid" or "we will always be proud" or stuff like that. For me, I will NEVER be disappointed in her. Fail a class? It's cause you didn't try. Show up late? Cause you didn't leave early enough. Didn't clean up after yourself? You're lazy. All things she knows how to do and CAN do. But I'm not disappointed. I'm annoyed. Nothing more annoying than a kid that gets higher marks than you in high school without trying and decides to just not hand in homework.

I don't gets disappointed, I gets annoyed. It's like when you hit the jump button and Mario runs off the edge of the platform instead. I TOLD YOU TO DO SOMETHING!!! GRRRRRR!!!

At the end of the day though, you just fire up the game again and keep playing. Especially if you have all item bars filled with p-wings!