It’s a question I get asked all the time. What does it take to be a dad? The people asking me this question are all hypothetical, and in fact may be figments of my imagination, but it does give me an awesome way to start a column about fatherhood.
You see, I happen to be something of a subject matter expert, having spent the last 16 years in the game. I was a wide-eyed naïve youngster when my oldest was born, but two more kids later, I think I finally have the hang of it.
What makes a dad? Ask any dad, and they’ll tell you: “having too much faith in the rhythm method.” They will then chuckle and go back to tending the barbecue, because a dad’s love language is outdoor cooking and questionable jokes.
But the fact is, impregnation—accidental or otherwise—is just what makes you a father. What makes you a dad is what you do next.
Some dads pursue the noble calling of fatherhood as a way to raise their sons and daughters right, installing moral guardrails and highlighting potholes on the road of life. For some dads, it’s a chance to correct their own parents’ mistakes, breaking whatever cycle they need to break along the way.
For me, being a dad is a chance to go a few more rounds in the bumper cars of childhood. It means playing with toys, running around in the grass and singing silly songs about farts. It means Friday nights streaming whatever movie Chris Pratt is appearing in now. It means maintaining a working knowledge of thousands of cartoon characters, despite not watching anything in which they appear. To me, fatherhood means having free rein to be kind of a cornball.
An adult man running around in a Mexican luchador mask, calling himself “El Padre” and body slamming children would generally be considered a threat to public safety. A guy driving around with a backseat that’s 95 percent granola bars would be considered a slob. Any adult who knows all the words to every song from Moana should probably be on a list somewhere. But when they’re dads? It’s all just part of the game. Or at least it is for a while, until the double-digit era of fatherhood starts to creep up on you.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, as my children age out. My oldest is 16, my next oldest is 13. And today, the day I write this, my youngest turns 10. As any dad will tell you, it all changes from here. Truth be told, it’s been changing for a while.
The bedtime stories were the first to go. Now, my youngest reads to herself until someone reminds her that lights out was a half hour ago. Over time, the licensed characters that adorn her walls became less sparkly and more snarky. We still sing songs about farts, but I know it’s only a matter of time before someone convinces her that she should be embarrassed about it.
And when that happens, this entire phase of fatherhood, reliving the golden years of my own childhood, will have come to an end. Suddenly I understand why older parents start being so insufferable about getting grandchildren.
But I’m not there yet. Whatever comes next, I draw some consolation from the fact that the double-digit years have been pretty great with the older two. I won’t go into specifics, because they’re teenagers and broadcasting their personal lives to a bunch of strangers would be the perfect kick-off to years of therapy. But suffice it to say, despite my best efforts, they’re two well-adjusted kids.
My dad was the best man at my wedding, and I remember him saying in his toast, “My favorite moments of fatherhood came when I could stop being a dad and start being a friend.” I’m starting to understand what he meant.
The oldest has a job that takes her out into the community, so we’ve been able to share stories about a few mutual acquaintances. She has a very similar sense of humor to mine, so when something happens that we definitely should not laugh at, it becomes a contest to see who’s going to break first. She’s not my little girl anymore, but she’s a young lady who is awesome to be around.
It’s the same with my son. We’re buddies now, albeit buddies whose dynamic allows one to tell the other to take the garbage out. And he does because he’s great. He’s even telling his own dad jokes; when we went to the “Pym Tasting Lab” at the Avengers campus in Disneyland, a restaurant themed around the incredible shrinking Ant-Man, he told me, “I think they only serve microbrews here.”
I mean, come on. That is a top-shelf, USDA Prime, restaurant-quality dad joke. And he’s 13.
It’s a different world I’m entering into as a dad. El Padre gets more eye rolls than giggles these days, and I’m finding that there’s a whole new generation of cartoon characters whose names I’ll never have to learn. But whatever’s happening next, I’m ready for it. Because I’ll have my kids with me, and that’s really all it’s ever been about.
That’s what it takes to be a dad—a willingness to embarrass yourself, the courage to install the guardrails around a rampaging teenager, and the fortitude to let them grow beyond you. And, obviously, songs about farts. Because there’s only so much growing up any of us should really do.
