I was recently listening to some early 2000s Alternative music (aka modern classical music) and Simple Plan’s “Perfect” came on, which is a song to a dad with the main lyrics being: “I’m sorry, I can’t be perfect.” I wonder how the band is now that they’re older and likely have kids of their own. Would they change the lyrics to being directed to their children, “I’m sorry, I can’t be perfect,” because they transferred their need to please their dad to their kids or would their kids be singing these lyrics about them? This is the same as asking: Did the band become nice-oholics needing their kids’ approval or follow in their dad’s footsteps and do what their dad did to make them feel like they weren’t good enough?
I remember being 22 years old driving to work belting out this song messy crying like a teenage girl who found out her best friend kissed the boy she liked. My mascara was running all over the place… metaphorically speaking. This happened shortly after a time my dad lost it on me and my brother. Now I better understand what was happening, but back then I was heavily stressed and I just thought he was being a jerk. I didn’t understand how good people can bottle things up and then explode. I just knew my dad yelled at us and I hated that, so this became the therapeutic song for the time (like it did for many young people).
After growing past the early childhood years (around eight), my dad rarely lost it on me directly. He normally just screamed at the TV because the Toronto Maple Leafs were amazing at being terrible after the Doug Gilmour days (more old people references – you’re welcome). Of course, even though my dad hadn’t yelled at me for awhile, I was still on edge wondering if/when he would. None of us in the family understood that a lot of his once-in-a-while anger bursts were a sign he was suppressing his emotions of work, family, and life in general until they eventually exploded out because they couldn’t be held in any longer. It was like he was a room that was slowly filling with gas and eventually the smallest spark could light it up – a problem a lot of good people who suppress their feelings have.
This one night, my dad found my brother and I in our room and made us feel like we were five all over again. And yes, I said “our” room because my brother and I shared a room until he was married at 27 – we were that cool. The most significant part of this unfortunate event was a day or two later my dad apologized to us for how he behaved. This was the first time he ever said the words “I’m sorry” to us in a way that was admitting he did something wrong. That was a very big moment for us because it took our relationship to a new level of trust. It was a bad moment turned valuable through my dad humbled himself.
Side Note: I highly recommend kids sharing rooms because it really helps with learning how to share space and deal with each other’s messes. It can create a special bond and reduce night time fears for kids because they’re not alone. It also makes it easier for parents to yell at the kids at the same time… not that any kids would find that a selling point.
I should take a moment to acknowledge that I now look back on my dad as being a very good disciplinarian. My five year old self wouldn’t agree, but that’s expected. When you’re getting in trouble as a child, if there’s a break in the scolding, you’re not going to say, “Thank you for loving me enough to yell at me. I love that you love me enough to try to make me a better person.” No, when you get in trouble (no matter the age), you get angry, but the hope is getting reprimanded will help you learn that doing certain things gets you in trouble because that’s how life works – there are rules to follow or there are consequences.
My mom has also affirmed that my dad was an excellent disciplinarian. He taught her the importance of the rule of three – three warnings and then there’s a more severe punishment (e.g. time out) to put an end to that behavior. Considering kids get hyper focused on things, this becomes necessary from time to time because otherwise you’re repeating yourself over and over and over and over times a hundred. My dad even gave my mom the ability to say, “Don’t make me tell your father,” and we’d immediately stop what we were doing. That’s power. I’m even a little jealous because I don’t think he ever felt bad for disciplining us – he just did it. You know the saying, “This hurts me more than it hurts you?” Yeah, that wasn’t a phrase he would’ve used. He’d be more, “This is to stop you from being a jerk! Don’t be a Kyle (or whatever the male equivalent is for being a Karen).”
I also give my dad credit because I would’ve been a challenging child since I had a bit of a rebellious streak… but only toward him. He liked Coke, so I liked Pepsi. He liked the Maple Leafs, so I liked Montreal and then eventually stopped watching hockey all together. True, my form of rebellion wasn’t earth shattering, but it’d be annoying: “Do you always have to like the opposite of me?” That being noted, overall my parents had it pretty easy with their three kids, but that’s arguably because they put the work in with us before we were eight (the most formative years). After instilling in us a respect for authority and rules (and getting me as a five year old to stop beating up my older brother), the dirty work was over. It was like a sculpture. The main chunks had been removed and now they were focusing on the details that would help us become good people.
While reflecting on this Simple Plan “Perfect” fueled moment I had with my dad, it finally occurred to me as a middle-aged therapist, he wasn’t yelling at us out of this angry scolding like it felt. This was a man who finally realized his sons had grownup and he felt left behind. This was grief coming out, and his explosion was sadness masked in anger. At that time my dad was building a shed that he’d been planning for months and was super excited about. His brother who had a carpentry background had been helping him, but his own sons hadn’t even asked him about it, let alone offered to help. My brother and I were in our own worlds. We lived at home, but we were busy with school, volunteering, work, sports, and church. We didn’t even need him to drive us places anymore. We were at an age and spot in our lives where we didn’t need his direct help, which left him feeling rejected and forgotten. It might have come out as anger, but it was the grief of knowing he was done with the role and life he knew. Our connection was never going to be the same again – we had grown up (as much as you can living at home). My sister, being five years older, had moved on years before and that was fine because my dad still had us… until he didn’t. He was used to having at least one of us around to give a hand when he needed it, but now… he was alone. We saw anger, but it was his heart breaking.
As good a disciplinarian as my dad was, he had two main mistakes. First, he didn’t give my brother and I a reason to be connected to him as we got older beyond asking him to proofread essays. As kids, because my brother and I could play with each other, my dad didn’t try to join us in throwing a ball around or shooting a puck – he didn’t have to. He could do his own thing (i.e. chores), which I have to admit as a dad of a six, four, and nine month old, sounds pretty great. The main times we spent with him, however, were doing chores around the house, helping him as a volunteer like making pancakes for the church’s men’s breakfast, or when he drove us to hockey or work. We did family daytrips and a couple weekend trips. We also drove to Disney as a family when I was eight, but even then he was “working.” He had to focus on the road or the plan he made to make us happy. As a dad, he didn’t know how to relax because he was always providing for us in some way. He was ultimately the background guy doing things to make our lives easier, but that also made it easier for us not to appreciate all that he was doing. He was essentially being a nice-oholic by trying to provide for us, but then he didn’t let himself have fun or be fun, which limited how close we could feel with him as his children. Then, before his kids were settled into adulthood and at a time where he could better engage with us as adults, he passed away from a heart attack. Overall, he had a great life, but this part makes it a bit of a sad story; it’s almost unfair. He worked so hard to be a great provider and when he was ready to settle down a bit in his 60s, he passed away.
My dad’s second mistake was not balancing his disciplining with praise. He apparently bragged about his kids to everyone else, but we never heard it. Maybe it was too vulnerable or just not something he was in the routine of doing, but either way that’s something I need to be careful of not repeating as a dad. That’s what we all need to be careful of – balancing discipline with praise (one without the other leads to problems). This lack of balance added with my sensitivity meant growing up I had too much fear for this very good man, but like everyone else I have four main choices now as a parent:
- I can follow in his footsteps and do what he did making me a bit of a hypocrite – a very popular choice
- I can be an absentee parent (the kids wouldn’t be scared of me… they’d be resentful)
- I can overcompensate and lack any sense of authority with my kids (i.e. a nice-ohlic parent who enables their child)
- I can try to find a better balance like my dad did (he was light years ahead of his own father)
Quite often nice-oholics come from over disciplinarian or absentee parents while I find enabling, nice-oholic parents raise entitled or unruly children. Regardless of your parents, it is up to us to work to be the best parent we can be, which means finding a balance of discipline, praise, and engaging time. It’s also up to us to try to find an understanding of what our parents were trying to do in order to find our own healing because the surface can be deceiving like recognizing when a parent was yelling at us when they were dying inside.
This week may you consider how a bad childhood moment with a parent might be more than the surface and connected to something deeper in order to have more acceptance.
Rev. Chad David, ChadDavid.ca, learning to love dumb people (like me)