Parenting is a job that nobody intentionally prepares you for; you just gotta be ready for that shit when it’s your time. I got a glimpse of my time a couple of weeks ago with my girlfriend’s kids. Her kids decided to stay with her for the weekend, but she ended up having to work on Saturday; so she left me in charge until she came back. I have been around and hung out with them, but I have never had the opportunity to be the primary authoritative figure in front of them. However, I know there’s a difference between holding tokens at Chuck E. Cheese and holding up a report card. But the day was going to be eventful in itself, because when my gal got home, we were all going to Peter Piper’s Pizza, along with her nephew, so I was about to get the full-fledged family man experience in one day. So here’s 4 things I took away from my day in parental school.
Develop Your System
As someone who watches sports and writes about them, I’m comfortable with comparing parenting to coaching. In sports, coaches have their own system. Phil Jackson had the Triangle offense in basketball, Mike Shanahan had the Zone Read offense in football and my black ass has nothing but experience from whatever my mama did as well as anything that I’ve picked up from my favorite black sitcoms (please protect Reginald Vel Johnson, Sterling K. Brown and Anthony Anderson at all costs). Despite that, it still occurred to me that I needed some sort of plan in place as the day was approaching. My only experience with kids, particularly as an adult, was when I was a substitute teacher. But no school bell could expel the scrambling nerves that occupied my head that week.
The only way I could get over the anxiety headed my way was develop a plan on how I would approach the day. The basis of my plan came from knowing who I was as a person – someone who was laid back, and not make a fuss over too much – but also maintaining some type of authority. I wasn’t so familiar with them that I can just come in and start barking orders, but I had to establish that they could not get too out of control. In the spirit of sports terms, I had to employ a “bend but don’t break” strategy, a phrase in football that refers to a team giving up a lot of offensive yards but holds their opponents to more field goals than touchdowns. There were some things I could probably let slide but I couldn’t just let them have a field day. My mission that day was to find a balance of being cool and stern when the time called for either situation. If I could figure that out, then I would have something to build off of going forward to rely on.
Manage your expectations
Given the fact that I have been around her daughters a few times, I had a general idea of how they sort of moved and what their behavior was like. They are good, smart kids that like to do regular kids things. That means they can do something as harmless as playing in the dirt, or something they’re not supposed to do like arguing with each other when they should be helping their grandmother clean. For me, it’s all about figuring out what is their normal “good” behavior and what is “crossing the line” for them. Once I figure that out, it will be much easier to pick battles with them if they are doing the latter.
Discipline/Setting Limits
I always knew I had an affinity for discipline because of how I like things to be a certain way sometimes. If I have a plan set out for the day, I expect myself to go about that plan step by step. When it comes to kids, I do expect them to obey; but that is not always the case, especially when you’re new. Even though I gave that spiel in the previous section about being easy-going, I knew that could not fully work with kids. I felt like it would be an open door for them to easily walk over me and run wild. My gal, who is Mexican, told me a conversation she had with her sister and her husband, who is black. My girlfriend’s brother-in-law talked about how black people grew up under strict parents and some of that might have rubbed off on the current group of black parents now. If you’re not black, and you want to learn something, then there it is right there. Black people come in all colors, shapes and beliefs; but we all got a Grandmama that has transcended generations with whupping ass.
My gal has some good kids, but like any child around a new parent or teacher, they will test your limits. At first, the few times they appeared to break any rules, it was borderline situations where I let it go; but as I saw them nearly pushing the boundaries that were already set, I quickly shut it down by reminding them of the activity we had planned that night. Whenever they committed an infraction that I deemed unnecessary, I hit them with a “strike” faster than Verlander in 2017 (stop hating on the Astros). They quickly picked up on the system and had a good day all the way through the evening.
It wasn’t until after the outing that things started turning up just a little bit. My girlfriend’s oldest daughter had lost a string to her shoe, so my gal got on her about being careless with things. In the midst of this going on, another situation was happening, in which I could tell was dampening the mood of everyone in the car; cue my girlfriend’s youngest daughter, who decided to join in on the trouble her big sister was already participating in. The youngest asked for some candy, and my gal told her no, because it was 9pm, obviously too late. When my girlfriend said that, her youngest proceeded to cry in protest. That is when I went into Dad mode and I got in my bag!! I stopped the car abruptly, then gave a speech about how we just had a great outing and there was no excuse for these behaviors to be exhibited on this evening. I swear I thought I was Randall from This is Us being hyped up by James Evans from Good Times. After I finished my rant, my girlfriend’s youngest continued to cry, so I turned my radio up to match the noise. I continued this until I went into the store; came back out of the store and all silence was befallen upon the car. Went home and enjoyed the rest of the evening with a much-needed beer.
Support and Validation
This was so vital in getting me through the day. The one thing that helped me was I took them to their grandmother’s house for most of the day, which was helpful in allowing me to have some support with someone they were familiar with and would not act too crazy with. Also, my girlfriend was able to back me up on my decisions and rants, as I supported hers. Going back to the outing story, when I was in the store, her daughters asked if I was serious that they had to go to sleep soon as we got home, and my gal told them yes, because of what they done that evening. If anything, it made me feel validated as an authority figure, which can be tough for someone in my position.
Obviously, I’m not these girls’ biological father, so it’s scary wondering if they will respect me or if my voice is not enough to command obedience. Ironically, I found my validation from my girlfriend’s oldest daughter a few days later. We were all out to dinner, then she leans over to her grandmother to tell her how she couldn’t understand how I knew what discipline to set for them, when they were acting up on Saturday. I’m not going to say that I was overjoyed at the sentiment, but my soul might’ve did the Ray Lewis dance a couple of times, in addition to some imaginary high fives. The excitement of that moment came from me knowing I was doing something right. The point I’m trying to make is that parenting is a real team sport. These days, parents are in relationships/situations that are alternate of the 2-parent household we strive to have. Therefore, working together in raising a child is important.
My Final Grade: I got a lot of work to do, which is expected for someone who has only 24 hours of being a parental figure on his resume. However, I don’t think this is a bad start; it was a big first step. Reading back on this, it looks like I focused a lot on the discipline – and I did because it was a legit fear of mine – but there were other things I learned as well. Communication and planning is vital so both parents are on the same page. This includes knowing what they like to eat or what activities they like to do, so you know what to go to when they become hungry or bored. This was a good one-day parenting course that I participated in but there’s such a long way before I even become a student that will become a teacher.