I Wasn't a Great Father (Issue 188)

But my dad was

Father’s Day is coming up this weekend, so I was thinking back on my life as a father and a son. My dad was a great father. He worked hard to provide for us, loved us, spent time playing with us, took us hunting, fishing, and camping, and taught us what it meant to be a responsible adult and good parent by example.

He was a strong blue-collar dude, but he was also loving, playful, and humorous. He was also available. By that, I mean he spent much of his free time with his family. Sure, there were times he had to work extra jobs and do things to make more money, since we were kind of poor (e.g., to buy Christmas presents for us). But he mostly worked his primary job and came home right after he got off work at 5 PM every day.

It was like clockwork. We lived in a tiny Midwestern town, so we knew how many minutes it would take him to drive home from the office downtown. My siblings and I would wait outside for him to pull up in his work truck. As soon as he walked up the sidewalk, we ran and jumped into his arms, digging through his shirt pockets for the ever-present pack of gum to grab a piece.

I know I was a lucky kid. I learned how to be a father from his example. He wasn’t perfect, of course. But I knew what other fathers were like, and I knew I was fortunate to have one like him.

So, when I became a father, I also wanted to be very present in my children’s lives. I read to them, played with them, took them to the park, went on hikes with them, took weekend trips to the beach, etc. As they grew older, I even played video games with them on the couch (something I had enjoyed as a teen).

However, the one big difference between me and my father was what I did for a living. While he had a blue-collar job with mostly predictable hours, I had a white-collar job designing software in Silicon Valley tech.

I learned that being on salary differed greatly from earning an hourly wage. There was no such thing as an “8-hour workday.” I still remember those initial months of my first “real job” at Apple. Silly me thought we would wrap up the day at 5 PM so we all could go home to eat dinner with our families.

But, as 5 PM approached and passed, I noticed that hardly anyone was leaving the office. Instead, we all kept working until 6, 7, 8 PM and beyond. Some nights, I worked until 10 PM or even midnight. I learned you couldn’t put in an 8-hour day if you wanted to “go above and beyond,” impress the leaders, and accomplish the kind of work that got you noticed and promoted.

So, I worked harder and longer for years and years (nights, weekends, and holidays), which resulted in my rapid advancement up the career ladder. In just an 8-year period, my managers promoted me from Sr. Designer to:

• Lead Designer

• Manager

• Sr. Manager

• Director

• Sr. Director

• Vice President

I was succeeding in my career and making more money than ever, but at what cost?

I would leave for work early in the morning to fight rush hour (a 1-2 hour morning commute), which meant my children were usually not up yet. I then worked late into the evening and fought freeway traffic again for an hour or two to get home. I missed dinner with my family, of course. But my children were often in bed already, too. So, I would go days without really seeing them until the weekend.

So much for being a great father, huh?

Eventually, I decided to leave the corporate world forever in 2010 to run my own business. I wanted the freedom to spend time with my family, take care of my health, and enjoy life more. So, I was now able to spend more time with my children, but they were no longer little kids.

I had missed that window in their young lives. And guess what? You never get that time back. You can never make it up. I did the best I could to reconnect with them and be a more present father (like my dad was), but I regret losing those early years.

If you are a parent and you still have time, I hope you can learn from my mistakes. Yes, success in your career is good. Sure, it’s nice to make more money. However, having enough is more important than making more, more, and more. But there is never enough money in the world to make up for lost time with your family. Money can’t buy everything, and it sure as heck can’t buy time that is gone.

So, find a greater balance than I did. Work hard and make money, but set strict boundaries for your personal life. Fiercely protect your time with your family. Treat it as the precious, rare treasure that it really is, because nothing will recover it when it is gone.

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Larry Cornett, Ph.D. | Empowerment coach, psychologist, nature lover, and fitness freak. I help you escape the “hustle trap” to create an empowered life that fits who you are and what you want most. From Silicon Valley exec to self-employed entrepreneur, I’ve also followed this path to freedom, so now I can help others find their way.

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