How to Dad
A midnight crash-landing helped one father see the light
The moment you become a father, you find yourself making some big promises. No matter that thirty minutes ago you hyper-ventilated into a paper bag while your wife endured childbirth. Or that the labor nurse had to offer you “a little something” for your nerves. As you cradle that baby for the first time, you just can’t stop yourself. You silently swear that you’re going to be a paragon of virtues — strong, kind, brave, prudent, smart about money, even good with tools.
In short, you promise to be somebody else.
Somebody better.
Somebody much better.
Somebody much, much better.
I remember my promises to our son, Josh. I would be the source of laughter, comfort, peanut butter, stories, standards, faith, hope and bicycles. I would make sure the all-weather tires were on the car before first snow. And you know what? I kept all my promises… until we took him home from the hospital. That’s when my big swaggering Daddy dreams started to come apart at the seams.
I got bushwhacked by fatherhood.
I had no idea what was coming, no idea that I would one day reach into my glove box and get bitten by a turtle. I had no idea that I would come to know the gestation period of a hamster. Or that I would ever find grapes in my shoes. I had no idea that Josh and his sister, Rebecca — who was to follow three years later — would call my bluff on every blowhard promise I had ever made. I also had no idea that being their father would renovate my heart.
Only now, can I see clearly.
My wisdom didn’t come easy. I had to survive the disaster at the Poconos Putt-o-Rama, that incident with the circus clown, and I had to spend a little over a zillion dollars on batteries.
Most important, I had to take a fall before I saw the light.
Until The Night of The Great Fall, I had always enjoyed my nightly lock-up rounds. With Jody and the kids asleep upstairs, I would cruise through the house, a sentry in boxer-briefs, turning off lights, checking doors, indulging in lord-of-the-manor thoughts, taking an unseemly pride in pulling up the drawbridge to our fortress.
Often, as I bent to pick up a deserted Lego or sneaker, I had dark, out-of-nowhere thoughts about how I would pulverize any intruder into Castle O’Neill. No matter that I am a man of modest strength, in my Daddy fantasies I had studied kickboxing, and was devastating in defense of the home ground. The coroner would only be able to speculate as to the cause of the bad guy’s death: “Massive trauma from some super-human, probably paternal, force.”
The truth is that some corner of my Daddy heart actually looked forward to a violent confrontation, actually wanted a chance to prove myself, to summon my muscle and will on behalf of my team. No doubt, my dreams of protective mayhem were cover for my day-to-day failings. Sure, I might often be too tired to listen to Josh’s jokes or help Rebecca with her homework. But in a real crisis, I told myself, Daddy would ride to the rescue.
The Night of The Great Fall, however, all those fierce notions of fatherhood went head-over-heels.
At the top of the stairs, my foot hooked Rebecca’s Baby Sweet doll carriage, a booby trap planted by fate. I stumbled, grabbed for the banister, but missed. And as I began to plunge, in free-fall down the stairs, I was sure of only one thing: I’d need medical attention on landing. I remember the squawk of the talking doll in the carriage.
“Hi, my name is Sparkle,” her computer-chip voice said.
I hit the stairs with a thud, bounced off the wall and kaboomed downward, the doll carriage, an oversized ankle bracelet, around my foot.. As I crashed hard into the foyer, Sparkle came free and went flying into the front door.
“Let’s take a walk,” she said. “I like to take walks.”
Splayed out on the floor, I moaned, managed to get to my hands and knees and tried to stand up. But my right ankle wouldn’t take the weight. I crumpled back to the floor, knocking over Sparkle on the way.
“Do you love me?” she said.
“Give it a rest, doll,” I muttered, in no mood for chitchat.
Even in my wounded state I didn’t forget my duties. As I stretched up to turn the lock in the front door, I suddenly pictured myself, now helpless, against the same mythical intruder I had just, moments ago pulverized. First, I imagined myself reduced to speaking to him sternly: “Hey, buster, this is private property!” Then I imagined a different coroner’s report: “O’Neill died of shame that he couldn’t protect his family.”
Helpless on the floor, I had a snake’s-eye view of the house. Over to my right, on the floor in the living room, were a half-eaten cookie, a Dr. Seuss book, a soccer ball, a small sock, and Barbie’s plastic friend, Midge — who was wearing only a single golden high- heel. Under the phone table was a plastic wizard sword.
I reached out and took up the blade. And as I actually wondered if I could use it against the non-intruder, I started laughing. In that ridiculous moment — as I brandished a polypropylene sword at a imagined trespasser — I saw through all those heroic delivery room promises.
Somehow, the sight of all those artifacts of family life scattered around the room made everything clear to me. The enemy isn’t out there. The enemy is already inside the house. The enemy isn’t a thief in a ski mask. Nom the enemy is fatigue and carelessness and all our cherished dumb ideas. The question isn’t how many threats Dad can repel from out there, but how much affection and character he can summon from inside his heart.
I somehow got up and hobbled through my night-watchman rounds. Still carrying my plastic Excalibur, I crawled upstairs into Rebecca’s room, and for a moment, just watched my daughter sleep, savoring the huffing of the child at rest. I knew suddenly and certainly that fatherhood isn’t puffed up with promises, that Dad isn’t tested in a shoot-out on Main Street, but in dozens of daily moments of shoe-tying and bread-winning. Fatherhood is a thousand small acts of stewardship and hope, steadfastness and care, a bridge from all those windy heroic vows to the real-life elations and exertions of doing your best of behalf of kids. I resolved to pay more attention.
I still have a souvenir of The Night of The Great Fall.
Every now and then, I’ll be walking along, step on a small stone or a crack in the pavement, and feel my ankle start to twist. Sometimes, I fall, just the way I went down that night. But more often, my now-trick ankle is only a twinge, a sharp anatomical reminder of two irrefutable fatherhood facts.
First, fatherhood is a chance to fall down the stairs, to be clumsy and careless, to let children down every day in every way. But second, and far more encouraging, fatherhood is also a forum for the best we’ve got, a chance to be fair and funny and noble and good, a chance to feel both humble and proud, to feed the hungry, comfort the weary, rally the faint of heart and pitch to the very small.
Fatherhood is the chance we’ve been waiting for.
This essay is adapted from A Man Called Daddy, by Hugh O’Neill, published by Thomas Nelson. FYI, the book includes the harrowing story of a near-death mini-golf experience, featuring twelve 6-year-olds wielding rainbow-hued putters.