Archives For Fatherhood

Sheepdog

Ben —  January 29, 2015

The bus arrives, he gets off the bus, and I see him looking at me across the street. His eyes telling me the beginning of a story, before even opening his mouth.

“Dad, this boy poked me in the eye at lunch on purpose, and then this other older boy was messing with me on the bus. I kept telling him to stop, and tried to not sit near him but he followed me, and then pushed my head into the window. These boys pick on a lot of us in the front.”

With tears in his eyes and a quivering lip he stood there on the sidewalk next to me, and waited until the bus passed. I responded by giving him a hug and saying, “buddy.”

I didn’t know what else to say, so I just asked him how he dealt with it and kept trying to encourage him and let him know it’s not his fault some boys choose to be mean, even when he is trying to be nice. In the middle of it all I gave him a little taste of a story I was reminded of in the recent movie American Sniper. As the story goes, I told him about three different types of people: Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs… Continue Reading…

Fifteen. Two Thousand and…

Ben —  January 20, 2015

Nunes Family (taken at Fall at the Farm, ’14)

It’s taken me all but half a year, hell even more than that, to publish my thoughts here once again. 2014 went by so quickly, and I wish I had held on to it as long as I could. I fear life is happening, and I am just standing here. Watching.

It doesn’t take much to discover my desire to create special moments with each of my loved ones. Looking deeper though you will also see a hint of regret from the days I allowed selfishness to consume and take over. The part which allowed me to say “no, not right now” when asked if I would let my daughter paint my nails, or when asked if I could play some football. Without hesitation, I would choose whatever I was doing at the moment instead. Great parenting huh.

Most parents will agree, within reason these moments are acceptable, and I would agree to a certain extent. However as I am approaching my 40’s I find wanting to spend any and all time I can trying to create memories. My children don’t always see the benefit, but usually when we are finishing the adventure of the day we can laugh about 1 or 2 events, and those types of memories are important.

It doesn’t always end up great though, and it sometimes it just… ends. No big lesson, no big memory, in fact sometimes it ends in tears because of a teaching moment where discipline is involved. Those are the worst, nobody likes ending in tears, but it still matters. Right?

Or maybe what matters most is the effort put forth by Kim and me. I’d like to think so, but I won’t know for sure until they’re all grown up and (hopefully) sitting around the same dinner table reminiscing about the time “Dad punished you for farting in public,” and laughing about it.

Who knows.

On Your Mark

Ben —  June 24, 2014

How are you leaving your mark?

Is it on Twitter? Social media? Facebook? Blog?

What do you believe will last and stand the test of time?

What will be your legacy?

Is your ‘platform’ twitter? what happens when your most retweeted tweet disappears? what do you have then? Does it matter? Are you in this life to glorify yourself, or have you thought that maybe you should be promoting somebody else’s fame?

What matters most to you? What matters most to me?

These are all of the questions going through my mind as I was watching twitter explode with people talking about the most historical tweets of all time starting to just vanish from the twittersphere. Apparently, back in March there was a ‘bug’ on Tuesday that caused for some tweets to disappear, and @Support had this to say: Continue Reading…

Stay Awake

Ben —  November 18, 2013 — Leave a comment

You are talking, and I am listening.

This doesn’t happen too often, for I am either preoccupied or you do not have the desire.

The stories that you are sharing, regardless of what you might think, they are not completely foreign to me but they are things that I happen to read just in passing at the end caps or through twitter. They are definitely things I would not normally care to research on my own.

You are talking so much, and I am just sitting here thinking how lucky am I that I get to sit here and hear everything that you think about, that makes you happy or sad, giddy or mad.

You are sharing everything that is circling around in your thoughts, and I love every minute of it.

Continue Reading…

Father to a Superhero

Ben —  November 14, 2013 — Leave a comment

Hey dads, I know we both love to see the sparkle in our children’s eyes when they talk about us as if we were superheroes.

I mean, aren’t we all? Do you twilight as a caped crusader, taking down bad guys all ninja-like and pretending to have this secret nobody knew about but if they did then they would know you were the one that saved the world from a zombie apocalypse?

You don’t? Yeah, me neither.

As much as I would love to be a superhero, I am not. But I believe our children are, or at least we’re training them up to be. We have a great responsibility in teaching our children how real men should look and act. We’re teaching our sons how to treat women, and we’re teaching our daughters how to be treated by men, and we’re teaching them both how to react to adversity.

Continue Reading…