Something about the Fall and the end of Q4, but I literally feel like I have been crammed into a rail gun and shot at a concrete wall — which is the New Year.

 

It might very well be a function of age, but every song that springs to mind these days is about Time.  And they aren’t happy songs.  “Ticking away / The moments that make up a dull day / Fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way” — or perhaps just simply “Time keeps on slippiin’ / Into the future.”  This isn’t even about mortality.  This is simply feeling like you are time crunched for everything and there are never enough hours in the day.  And you’re doing a crap job at pretty much everything. Especially being a dad.

Full disclosure:  I work in New York.  And truthfully, it’s not that I am always working so damn hard.  This is not a pity party.  I am not so overworked and under appreciated diatribe.  I have a one job I love (most days), a supportive wife and #kids I love unconditionally – and who generally reciprocate.  This is more an existential crisis around the fact that right now, all I can think is I that I am not that awesome dad I aspire to be.  That I am coming up short, not doing enough, not doing it right.  And when it comes to my kids, failure is not an option.

Maybe it is a function of modern life?  As my father oft said, “you can have time or you can have money.  But you can’t have both.”  And he was right.  But why does it seem that I can’t seem to have either? I suppose this is why we are so obsessed with articles about the work/life balance.  And for mothers, the topic of “Having It All” is roundly debated.  But let’s set mothers aside for a moment, because they have endless forums on urban baby to grouse about their husbands and banter.  I am asking the hard question: What does it take to be a Bad Papa?  And how do I know if I am passing muster?

What does it take to be a Bad Papa?  And how do I know if I am passing muster?

I can easily point to external forces at work: the always connected workplace, the fact I live and working in the most over priced / highest cost areas of the country, that I continue to place importance on very expensive ideals (like paying for my kids college?!?), and of course that in general, life can actually be unpredictable and unfair.  That we live in a future that is just in time and on demand, and that I, as Brian Wilson himself said, “I just wasn’t made for these times.”

Or… I can gather my wits, pull myself up straight and remember that there are little people who are counting on me.  And that is more important than anything.  So I should act like the man I know I can be.

— Bad Papa East