Over the weekend I ran The Fatherhood Summit (as you probably know).
It was a lot of fun, a lot of people tuned in, and I myself learned a lot form the speakers.
After day 1 I went inside after the summit at around 8:30am (I started at 1:30 am). And my daughter asked me “How did our summit go?”
“Our.”
The fact she asked and knew what I was doing and how important it was as an event was exciting enough, but framing it as something that related to her as well blew me away.
The Disconnect
This reminded me of how men aren’t meant to work away from their family. In times passed, work was more of an integral part of life, and not this disconnected thing that we do as a means to an end.
This disconnect has extended to the family as well. Dad disappears and returns – and to a child, they don’t really understand why, it’s just how it is. They don’t know how hard you work, or what it is you are doing for those 8-12+ hours you are gone for. Dad is just gone and that’s what happens.
Our kids will thank their mothers for the meal that was cooked, but not their father for providing it.
The disconnect is real, and you can rectify it by applying principles that connect our input to the results your kids see but don’t recognize (yet).
While my daughter was younger at the time, I used to work away to do electrical work repairing and installing machinery. But I was also building a business at home, more as a hobby because I like creating things (especially income streams).
Your Contribution & Theirs
Point is, she still got to see what was involved (and play in and around the dozens of boxes in our small flat), it doesn’t have to be confined to your primary income source. By demonstrating your work ethic and skillset, you kids will learn to connect your efforts to the food on the table.
Taking this one step further, you can get your children involved with other projects. All 3 of my kids help in our ecommerce store, packing boxes, inputting data, measuring, and picking items off of shelves as well. Then we all drive to the drop off point for the parcels to be collected from.
The same goes for working with them on the property. They help int eh vegetable gardens, with the livestock, building projects, and everything else.
This gives them a genuine sense of contribution to the household as well.
When families were seen as an entire unit and enterprise, this was the common feeling between the members. Dad may be out in the fields with a son ploughing, or they’d rake hay together. A son would shepherd the sheep during the day, or go out looking for small game. Mom would be milking animals, or spinning wool. Daughters would be crafting things, cleaning up, helping with house hold duties.
It was a team effort. Everybody had a part to play with the father at the head of the household. This created familial unity and a sense of collective contributions toward a greater project that is difficult to capture in any other way. This too extends to nobles, merchants, and kings.
It of course had its share of challenges, but the principles remain the same – and while most men now have to work away in their day to day, you can capture the essence of this through going above and beyond. It can be as simple as working in the yard with your kids, taking up a constructive/productive hobby, working out with your kids, renovating the house as a family, or building a side business together.
These not only give you a chance to show them what you’re capable of and pass over skills, it will also give you a chance to know them on a deeper level.
Knowing
If you know your children, they will know you.
Little will let your kids know you better than working on a challenging project together, or showing them how you over come challenges. And likewise the conversations that stem from this, and seeing how they respond to difficulties, learning what they do and don’t like about tasks and learning their strengths will shape your role as a father to them for the better.
Through this you will transfer your values.
While I’m not saying you should quit your job to work from home and scythe the fields, I am saying you will only benefit from having your children involved in your work and productive projects. It will remove the disconnect from your disappearing for work and providing, and will form a deeper connection with them that can’t be replicated in any other way.
You teach who you are as much as what you know.
If you don’t guide them, somebody else will.
Thanks for reading.
Yours,
Ben Black
