Two years ago, on the occasion of Father's day I wrote an entry explaining the difference, of course, between the father he was going to be before he had children and the father he ended up being. As I explained, my intention, or my legacy, was simply to do what I had seen do and what seemed logical to me.
Luckily, the mother of the creatures and my children themselves had a lot to say on this subject and they managed, together, to be a very different father. I put all my effort to do it right, my energies and my desire to change the world through my children, because it is already known that sometimes it is enough to change oneself to somehow promote a greater change. For a while I thought I was a perfect father, but time puts everything in its place and that's why I'm going to explain today why can't we be perfect parents, why I failed to be and why we do not have to try to be.
Why I came to believe he was a perfect father
I consider myself an honest, humble and respectful person, although it is true that, as I explain, I thought that children were indomitable beasts that we should try to bend from the beginning to achieve obedience and servility. Well, probably once I had my children everything would remain in the concept and in practice it would not be as authoritative as I sell it, but I was going to have enough of what I saw at home.
I broke that chain of transmission and blocked the passage of authoritarian parenting style to unleash a calmer, more dialogic, patient and respectful style. Something like be myself with my children, showing me as is, talking with them as who talks to an acquaintance and explaining things to seek reflection. Something like "I don't have to tell you what the conclusion you have to come to, but I can help you reach a conclusion."
Obviously the children, children are, and at first the patience and the left hand are worth a lot more, that is, the imagination and creativity to weather aúpa storms, tantrums and actions that adults hardly understand. But there I was, with my patience, my words and my usual temper to try to adapt to my son's way of being and to know us more, to gain confidence and get along better and better.
Then the second came, Aran, and everything remained the same, more or less, because where one child fits, another fits. Jon was almost three years old and in a way everything was a little easier, and the little one, because he had to adapt to the life we led and we tried to make a hole for him to feel one more quickly.
An almost idyllic life with dad, mom, Jon and Aran, and I with the same intensity and the same desire to defend my parenting style, to talk about it, to proclaim that the world would be much better if we started to treat children, the future, as they deserve, that is, with respect, and to explain that the more time we spend with them, the better people they are. I believed it then and I still believe it now, eye, because all that has not changed. The one that has changed is me, or perhaps what changed was the situation.
But I am not a perfect father
We can say that one day I opened my eyes. I hoped that, as a perfect father that I thought I was (or at least the perfect father for my children), my work, my intensity, my patience and my temper would be reflected in my children's way of being. I was putting all my life in them.
Guim arrived then and it was when the work multiplied. We were two adults for three children and, although Jon was already 6 years old, he was far from being completely autonomous and independent and, logically, we didn't want him to be, if with autonomous and independent we mean a child who doesn't need us at all, not even emotionally (which is what many people look for when trying to make their children like that).
The older and the middle grew more and more, the little one gave the job that a baby gives and in a way nerves, tensions and autopilots arrived. I talked about it last summer when I asked if it was possible to foster with attachment with three or more children, because on more than one occasion the patience was exhausted, on more than one occasion the father who was going to be emerged and was not, but that I was not eliminated, but latent and on more than one occasion I saw myself screaming at my children and making absurd threats. All because they seemed not to be what I expected them to be. Or maybe because I realized that the more they grew, the less was the possibility of taking control.
"Oh, no ... I'm becoming my father," he told me to himself. "I will end up being like the father I never wanted to be." Well, this is typical, a flower comes out and we think it's spring. Or all white or all black.
I relaxed a little, I thought about how absurd it was to think that I could end up being authoritarian, screamer, punisher and passive with my children because they were all characteristics that did not define me as a person.
I was still the same, but with a new challenge. They say that when you know all the answers your children ask you new questions, and there I was, and there was Miriam, with one more child, with two children who were getting older and began to play together, but also to discuss together and With a baby who was not eating and sleeping. Add to all this problems with the school, the medium that did not adapt, that in the afternoon we returned all the tension accumulated in the school in the form of revenge "for leaving me there" and the cocktail was dangerous.
We arrived at the mental and physical blockade on more than one occasion and we came to shout at our children also on more than one occasion, and then apologize and explain why we did what we had never done. Why we no longer talked so much and we were drier, why we demanded more and more with less patience.
They understood what they could understand and so we continue since then with the day to day, treating them with the same love as always, with the occasional "ida de olla", but with the luck of having each other to tell us that "dad, don't shout, you're going" or "mom, don't worry it's not that bad", the luck of have some children able to tell us "don't yell" and the luck of being able to speak it and end in a laugh, without the pressure of being perfect parents and without the pressure of having perfect children.
Why can't you be a perfect father
For a very simple reason: because to be a perfect father you must be a perfect person. It is simple, so much that it falls by its own weight. But look, it took me a few years to realize something so logical.
I could not be a perfect father because I am not perfect. I have my lights and I have my shadows, I have my values, but I have my fears, I have my letters, the ones I teach, but some I keep in my sleeve and I have a big heart, but with many scars that hurt when removed. So sometimes, by not touching them, by not digging into them and by not making new wounds, one keeps his heart to himself, without exposing it, and ends up looking like what he is not.
We are imperfect The inheritance of an environment and of lives that could have been worse but could also have been better. And as imperfect beings that we are we do with our children, simply, what we can. Yes, what we can in the best way we can. And it is not for justification, that I do not, but what seemed terrible to me now seems more normal to me.
By this I mean when the autopilot jumps ... when "the clamp is gone" and I cut for the sake of the plan "because if you do not agree, you do not see either one or the other" and I stay with something that does not belong to me, for example.
But hey, they are children, and children are like that. They have to learn to listen, to talk, to negotiate, to reach agreements and until they reach that point, so many situations appear incomprehensible to us (or more than incomprehensible, hard, because we don't want to see how they hurt each other ), that we are forced to intervene. And that, when it repeats itself over time, wears to the point that there are days that you explode (and not only because of that, because there are many more things that wear one out).
In the end you realize that the difficult thing is to find someone who does not lose the papers with the children, who does not yell at them and does not tell them those things that one day I thought I would never say. I guess the difference is that some of us then feel bad and try to bring positions with the children, apologizing if necessary.
I do not want, my children, to see me as an ogre father, grumbling that with the years he has less patience every day. I am not perfect and I am much calmer, even, since I allow myself not to be, so patience, for your part and for mine, that I love you so much, so much, that now I just pretend be dad. Neither more nor less, which is not little.
Photos | Thinkstock On Babies and more | Father's Day: There are parents who are wonderful, "What is that?", A wonderful short about fatherhood, "Fatherhood has changed me as a person." Interview with father and blogger David Lay
