The Mechanics of Being a “Real Dad”
Home repairs aren’t your identity
I am an annoyingly progressive, millennial dad. I scream out, “Pizza rolls not gender roles!” as I cook dinner for the family in a floral apron. Or, “Cinnamon rolls not gender roles!” as I scrub the toilet in my yellow, rubber gloves. My wife builds our budget and has been known to tag and bag some serious spiders. We’ve even flirted with the idea of ditching “wife and husband” and opting for “partner.” Real forward, social-progress-needle-moving stuff, I know.
Still, there are some traditional male duties that fall to me in our home and progressive as I am, I still hang all the pressure of being able to deliver on those tasks on my identity as a male. So things like fixing the car or repairing the sink, feels like a high stakes scenario in which I’m not just taking care of our household; I am, in a way, proving my station.
I’m showing I’m worthy of being the husband. The dad.
I had a particular string of those duties in which I did not deliver. It began with one of our daughters dropping her pink toothbrush down the bathroom sink. It started out okay. I got under the sink, took out the necessary pipes, removed the toothbrush and threw it away.
When I went to put everything back is where the problems started. Every time I had the pipe lined up with the sink, I’d tighten it in place and let go, thinking I had succeeded. The pipe would disappointingly slip down into the fitting allowing a gap between the drain and the main pipe. With a frustrated sigh, I’d move the pipe back up to sink, retighten, and let go.
Time after time it slid back down. As if the pipe was impotent. I couldn’t believe it. It was the same parts as when I started the repair, everything was exactly where it was before and yet it wasn’t working. I tried again and again until I had an angry red blister on the palm of my hand.
The next week, driving home from teaching a night class, I tried to roll down the window, but my finger hit the wrong button and the rear driver side window rolled down. When I went to roll it back up, it wouldn’t budge. At the next stop light, I wrenched my hand between the seat and the door and tried to use the button on the door itself. Still no dice.
Coming from a family of hand me down cars I knew this old drill. If I could just get a sliver of the window back up I could pull the rest into place. All the buttons were toast, none of them helped. When I finally got home, I tried to yank the glass up to no avail. I pulled out my phone and watched YouTube clips and scrambled through online articles, hoping to find some secret hack, but none of the tricks worked.
Just like the uncooperative pipes, my only plan of action left was an angry, attempt at yanking the part back into place, fueled by a string of curses and hinging solely on determination. The glass still wouldn’t give. Eventually, in their final mocking of me, the gods sent rain.
Defeated, I went inside to find the only thing that would suffice in covering my window and protect my car from the elements: my wife’s cling wrap and some blue electrical tape. I sealed the window the best I could. Now my hand had a light purple bruise below my thumb from gripping the window with the ferocity of a maniac.
As I moved through my week, each time something tugged at the edge of the blister on my hand from the pipe or bumped the bruise on my thumb from the car repair, it was like a dull aching reminder of insecurity: YOU DIDN’T DELIVER. YOU COULDN’T FIX IT. YOU’RE NOT A REAL DAD. YOU’RE NOT A REAL MAN.
But then my kids had a rough day at school. We had all made it home for the evening and were recounting our days to each the way families do. Putting away coats and starting dinner and yelling down hallways and across rooms the injustices of our lives and the little victories we share with everyone. Once everything was covered it was clear that we had all had a difficult one.
My instincts kicked in and I did the only acceptable thing: I had our Alexa play Chaka Khan’s “Like Sugar” on volume 10. Before long, we were all dancing terribly and laughing at each other. My son looked up at me after we crashed on the couch and said, “You’re the best dad, ever.”
I had fixed it.
Our faces flushed from exertion and excessive giggling, we sat down to eat in a much better mood. I had known what we all needed in that moment: a little hip shaking and hilarity.
And that’s the real reason you’re a dad, a husband, or any contributing person in a family. Taking care of the physical things is important, but knowing how the little bodies and hearts of the children in your house work is paramount. Those other things got repaired but they’ll break again. The relationship I build with my kids and my wife will never be broken. It’s only growing, like a lush garden that doesn’t know a dormant season.
Sure, there will be times that require careful pruning or tedious weeding or the patience of day-long sunshine and tenderness. But it’s only going to bloom.
And unlike my skills as a plumber or mechanic, I’m a damn good gardener.
