10 Rules for Band Dads
My older daughter Lilly has been playing music for many years, and in elementary and middle school she did recitals and even a solo guitar performance. Lilly is extremely musically talented and she works hard. I say that as objectively as I can as any dad ever could, especially one who got to hear a lot of squeaks and sour clarinet notes in the early going.
As she entered 9th grade, coming out of The Year They Stayed Home, we became A Band Family. The weekly schedule revolved around very long marching-band practices that stretched past dark and football games that became increasingly intense as the high-school varsity team overperformed and began winning a bunch of games they were supposed to lose.
I’m a Band Dad now. The time when my teen daughter becomes a VIP in need of chauffeuring to and from the high school people warned me about has come and I have three more years of this to look forward to. Being a Band Dad involves buying band merch for fundraisers that go on all year, rooting for the team at home (and some away) games, and watching YouTube and TikTok videos my daughter shows me that make absolutely no sense to me but that express the culture and inside jokes of being in the band. It means seeing my daughter at her most stressed and vulnerable, when she feels the crushing adult weight of too many responsibilities and not enough time and energy (Welcome, child, we’ve…
