Grumpy Daddy
Sometimes when I’m asking my kids to do something, they call me Grumpy Daddy, especially if it is something they don’t want to do. How convenient. I try to explain why they should do something because it is what I always wanted as a kid growing up, so I give my kids that extra piece of knowledge instead of saying they should do something because I said so.
One evening, I was eating dinner with everyone and my 7 year old daughter E wanted to play with her 5 year old brother C’s soccer ball. We have a yellow foam soccer ball that my wife got C for Christmas and it has been the gift of the holidays since he plays with it all the time. He was still eating dinner and it would have been an easy way to share with his sister, but he declined.
I explained to C that if you aren’t using something, it is the best time to share. Then you can ask for it back when you need it and set those ground rules. He still declined to share, which I was not happy about, but I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it.
A few moments later, C got up from the table and got another bouncing yellow ball that lights up along with a green slinky along with his yellow soccer ball. He had 3 different toys and here comes my 1 year old son L wanting the bouncing yellow ball. C did not want to share and it frustrated me, so I explained again why he should share because he had a lot of toys now. He declined to share again, so I took the bouncing yellow ball and gave it to L. What I did wasn’t right, but I wanted to force the sharing.
C called me a Grumpy Daddy and I had to explain that I wanted him to learn how to share. This ended up turning into a gigantic argument and even though I felt like I did the wrong thing for the right reasons, the argument made me evaluate my own self so I could show up differently while still teaching the lessons I wanted my kids to learn. I needed to also pick my battles strategically so that little things didn’t blow up into something huge. As a parent, it’s hard to admit when you are wrong and I did end up apologizing to C and everyone later. Hopefully we all learn from this one and I won’t be such a Grumpy Daddy to them!
