Many, many years ago, this is the month when I first became a father. I had no idea how much it would transform me and completely change my life.
Parenting has changed over the past decades. People are spending more time with their children than past generations did. As a Gen X dad, I know I spent more time with my kids than most of the Boomer fathers I knew when I was growing up. I was pretty lucky, though. My dad actually did spend a lot of time with us. When he wasn’t working, we did stuff as a family (e.g., shopping, drive-in movies, hunting and fishing, swimming at the lake and river, going on long walks in the country, sledding, camping, and other vacations).
Still, it took me a few years of marriage to warm up to the idea of being a father. I was very focused on my graduate school education and my career in Silicon Valley. I wanted to get things off to a solid start and make enough money to feel comfortable supporting a family.
🎧 NOTE: I go into more detail in the audio of this podcast episode. So, scroll up and hit play if you want to listen. ⬆️
But guess what? You never feel you have enough money or that your career is cruising on autopilot. I remember when my mother-in-law talked with us about having children, and we explained why we were waiting (e.g., money, feeling ready to be parents).
She said, “If you wait until you feel completely ready to be parents, you will never have children. You will never feel ready.”
She was right. That’s true about many things in life.
I talk about that when coaching people to plan a self-employed business model that will help them escape their 9-to-5 job and semi-retire early. No one ever feels 100% ready to quit their job and run a business. No one ever feels as though they have saved enough money and invested enough to retire safely. You just don’t! Unless you got really lucky and made the kind of money that you know you’ll be okay. But even multimillionaires and billionaires don’t like the idea of retirement. I have thoughts about why that happens, but that’s a conversation for another time…
At some point, if you know you want to become a parent, it’s a leap of faith. Sure, don’t rush it like an unprepared fool. But you also can’t keep putting it off until it’s too late and physically impossible.
So, yes, we became parents, and it worked out. It was scary at first. My wife is such a natural mother. I’m not exaggerating when I say she is the best mom in the world. If you don’t believe me, ask our children. They adore her. Everyone does. So, I think she flowed right into caring for our newborn and giving her exactly what she needed. Loving that tiny person more than anything else in the world helps.
But I still felt like I had to learn how to be a father. The love part was easy. My heart had felt nothing like that before. You can’t really explain it to someone who isn’t a parent (and I know not all parents feel it). I had never felt love like that before. The kind of love that means you would do anything for your child, protect your child at all costs, and die for a child in an instant.
No questions.
No second guessing.
No hesitation.
You just know it.
A funny thing happens when you have known someone and loved them from birth. They exist in your heart and mind as a continuum from baby to adult. The visual in my mind is something like the one below from the television series Avatar: The Last Airbender. We watched this show with our children for years (they loved it).
When I see my children, I see the flow of their existence from newborn to adult. It all exists simultaneously with a blend of memories from their entire lives. I have loved them and interacted with them in ever-evolving ways. For me, it is sometimes hard to let go of the babies and young children I remember. I think part of it is because I had to work so much, so I wasn’t as present in their lives as I wished I could be. It saddens me, so perhaps I cling to those memories.
So, as a Gen X father, my career was supposedly my primary quest, and being a dad was a side quest. It’s kind of messed up, and I’m glad to see younger generations challenge that notion. Sure, we need to make a living. But raising good, amazing people who can help bring more good into this world is more important than any corporate mission statement or career goal.
Eventually, I figured that out and walked away from my corporate career in 2010. I wanted to be a better father and husband. I wanted to take better care of myself and my health so that I could see my children grow up, start their own families, and bring their own children into this world. I wanted to experience being a grandfather! The path I was on risked all of that.
When I look back on my life’s accomplishments, nothing compares to being a dad. I am a father and husband first; a coach second.
I enjoy running my business and helping people, but my family comes first now. My children are the best thing that has ever happened to me. They are the most amazing people I know. I know every parent says that, but I wish you could meet them. They are so smart, adventurous, courageous, compassionate, caring, funny, and wonderful people to spend time with. We are so lucky that they still enjoy being with us. They come home to visit, we travel to see them, and we still do things together (e.g., hiking, backpacking, camping, travel, vacations, etc.).
That’s why I intentionally designed a flexible, asynchronous, location-independent business that lets me own my time and travel where I want, when I want. Now, we visit our children and spend several weeks with them. Being able to do this did not happen by accident. No job would ever have enabled it. It hasn’t been easy to make it happen, but it has been worth it.
So, the side quest became my primary quest. That happens sometimes.
In this case, it happened because it should have happened. I think that many of the issues in this world come from poor parenting. I hear stories of bad parents, toxic parents, unloving parents, absentee parents, etc. The list goes on and on. Some people rise above terrible experiences and swear that they will never do that to their children. They became great parents despite the negative parenting they had experienced. However, some people are damaged by their upbringing, so they take it out on the rest of us and the rest of the world. Sadly, I see that all the time.
My message is this: If you’re going to be a parent, be a great one. Make it your priority. I don’t mean the lip service I hear all the time. I mean, really prioritizing your children over other things. Really.
I’m gonna brain dump some thoughts on parenting. I’m not saying we were perfect, or that we got it right the first time. But you know what? We wanted to get better at parenting. We invested in it, learned from our mistakes, and kept trying to improve. We still are working on things as we’re becoming parents of adult children!
Quality time matters, but so does quantity.
Love them deeply and fully.
Accept them and support them completely.
Expose them to a variety of foods early and often.
Read to them every day until they fall in love with reading.
Travel with them so they experience the world and other cultures.
Protect them and defend them (this world can really suck).
Be a role model for good behavior, decency, emotional regulation, self-care, etc.
Explore the outdoors with them, and put them on the path to exercise and health.
Help them grow and let them face challenges appropriately.
Don’t give in to the temptation to give them everything under the sun.
Limit their access to screens, online bullshit, and the associated risks.
Don’t make their life so easy that they face no failures.
Respect them, talk with them, and actually listen to them.
Take ownership of staying connected with your adult children.
Ask and learn about their lives, relationships, careers, and more.
Make the effort to communicate, travel to them, and visit them.
I’m sure some of this advice and my opinions will resonate with some of you. But I also know that some of you will disagree with some of it, feel irritated, or even pissed off. Such is the nature of being a human being and sharing opinions online!
If you don’t like it, write your own article about children and parenting. It’s free to do so! And it’s a great way to express yourself and get things off your chest. Hey, that’s why I do it.
🎧 I expand on much of what is written here in the audio of this podcast episode, so scroll up and hit play to listen. ⬆️ Or ignore me. That’s cool, too.
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.
➡️ Want to design your path? Book a free call with me!
📕 Check out my Invincible Daily Journals!
