Then I Just Wanna Be a Daddy

It was a night like most. I had just finished reading a Bible story to my two boys and was just about to pray for them, when I decided to pose a question.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” I asked.

“I wanna be a bus driver!” Andru, the youngest of the two, quickly exclaimed.

“But, Andru, bus drivers in Chile don´t make any money, and it is really dangerous,” I tried to explain.

As his face scrunched up in bewilderment, a sense of guilt crept into my heart. I had just crushed my six-year-old´s dream of being a bus driver. Expecting him to start crying, I observed him tentatively, but instead, he shot back without thinking, “Then I just wanna be a daddy”.

“Me too, Daddy! I just wanna be a daddy too!” exclaimed Cael, my ten-year-old.

Later that evening, after I had kissed the boys goodnight and come downstairs, I began to wonder what would make my youngest want to be a bus driver. But more importantly, I wanted to know why he had decided to just be a daddy. And what about my ten-year-old? He hadn’t even offered an idea of a job he wanted to do. He just wanted to be a daddy.

Many thoughts began to race through my mind about myself as a dad. Am I a light dad? Do I make it look too easy? Do they think I am a good daddy and therefore want to be like me? Do they want to be a daddy because they think it is a ‘cush’ job? Moreover, I wondered, Have I not shown them that there are more options in life than just being a daddy?

What was it? I wanted to know! Did their response mean I was doing things right or wrong?

It’s no secret that I am a different kind of daddy than most. I work at home, take the kids to school, pick them up from school, have breakfast and supper with them every day, and am basically with them their every waking moment. As far as my boys are concerned, that’s what they understand fatherhood to look like.

When I was growing up, my understanding of a father was different. If anyone were to ask me at the age of six or ten what I wanted to be, I would have never said that I wanted to be a daddy. My thoughts were more like, Where is my daddy? Why isn´t he here with me? What did I do wrong? Sure, I had good examples in some uncles, coaches, and men from church, but they didn´t fill that ‘fatherless’ void.

At the age of 20, I made a hard choice. “When I am a dad, I will always be there for my kids,” I promised myself. Now, at 42 and three kids later, I can say that I have kept my promise. And I don´t plan on breaking it. You see, I´ve always thought that being a daddy was a calling. Still do. But every so often, that calling isn´t enough. I need to make it my job. Let me explain.

If I take a break from my job on a whim, I run the risk of losing my job. The consequences are clear and usually immediate. But if I dilly dally around in my role as a dad, the consequences aren´t as clearly defined and may not be immediate. It’s much easier, then, to take a break from being a daddy. That is, unless you take a cold hard look at the long-term consequences of your actions.

If I take break from my kids today, then it will probably be easier for me to do it again tomorrow. Tomorrow turns into the day after tomorrow, then a week, and maybe forever. When this happens, I run the risk of losing my kids. Maybe not in the physical sense, but definitely emotionally.

With this perspective in mind, I must also make my kids my job. The consequences of not doing so are far too costly. Every interaction, or lack of interaction, I have with them today determines their beliefs and worldview tomorrow. Today´s actions will one day be their memories.

Therefore, sometimes I have to dig down deep to keep from losing my patience. I oftentimes fail. There are some nights when I just don´t feel like putting them to bed with a Bible story, prayer, and personal story about a time that I pooped or vomited on myself. (Those are the ones they ask for.) It would be so much easier for me to just say, “I don´t know,” to their one billion and one questions every day, even when I know the answer (which isn´t often), but I gotta dig deep. This is my calling. This is my job.

The realization I came to that night, after some thought and prayer, was that my boys are boys. The idea of driving a huge bus and getting paid for it is the best thing in the world to them. Yet, even in their simple thinking and at their young age, they want to be daddies. Whether they see me as someone who lives an easy life, as someone who doesn’t work, or as someone who is always there that they enjoy being around, I will take it as a compliment. I’m doing something right.

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