There’s a meme I’ve seen about how we viewed our dads as kids. It’s a picture of a grown man shrunk down into a kid’s body, as if he’s looked like a dad his entire life.
And honestly, that’s kind of how it feels.
When you’re young, you look at your parents and the people around you who have more experience, and they just seem to know things. You don’t really think about how they learned any of it. It’s almost like they were born into that role.
I’ve always looked at my dad that way. He’s the person I call when I don’t have an answer to a situation and need some advice. He’s always a phone call away, ready to answer whatever random question I have.
Now I’m going to be a dad next year, and I’ve been wondering whether I’m ready to be that person for someone else.
Today, a coworker’s check engine light came on. She was trying to figure out what was going on, and I mentioned that I had a code reader in my car.
“Hey, I can take a look at that for you.”
I went out, grabbed it, and hooked it up to her vehicle. We read the codes so she had a little more information about what might be wrong and what to discuss with the mechanic.
Another coworker jokingly responded with, “Oh yeah, because everybody has that in their car.”
My coworker had also called her dad for advice. What we found lined up with what he’d thought might be happening.
It was a pretty ordinary interaction. But when I sat back down at my desk, I kept thinking about it.
The reason I had that reader in my car was because I’d needed it before. The reason I could offer any feedback was because I’d dealt with some of these things myself. I’d asked my dad questions. I’d had to figure things out.
And now someone else had a problem, and I could help.
I sat there thinking, Man, I’m just doing dad things right now.
Part of what scares me about becoming a father is how much responsibility comes with it. There’s so much our parents do for us that we take for granted.
I think about calling my dad and how reassuring it is to hear him explain something I don’t understand. He can draw from his own experience and help me figure out what to do next. Sometimes just hearing him say, “It’s not that big of a deal. You’re going to be okay,” helps.
I want to be able to do that for my kid.
But I also think about the day my dad won’t be around to answer the phone. That’s hard for me. I still have so many questions, and part of me wonders how I’m supposed to become the person with answers when I’m still calling someone else for them.
Sitting at my desk today, I realized I’ve already been learning how.
I’m still asking questions, but I also know things now that I didn’t know years ago. Some of the things I once needed help with are things I can help someone else through.
I’ve been becoming this whole time.
I can see the same thing in my job. I didn’t wake up one day with all the experience I needed to be a social media marketer. I had to learn how to do it, and a lot of that learning was uncomfortable.
You ask questions you feel like you should already know the answers to. You make mistakes. Sometimes you look like an incompetent while you’re trying to figure it out.
That’s been true with my vehicles, too. The experience that let me help my coworker came from problems I would have preferred to avoid.
At the time, they were just annoying. Something else to deal with. Another thing I didn’t understand.
Then someone else runs into a similar problem, and suddenly I have something useful to offer.
It makes me think about how much of life works that way. We’re all on this planet at the same time, doing our best with what we know. Some of what we’ve struggled through gives us a way to help each other.
I don’t think I noticed how much I’d learned until I saw someone else need it.
For now, it’s something I need to remember as I get ready to be a dad.
I keep looking ahead and wondering whether I’ll be ready, as if there’s a morning coming when I’ll wake up and feel like I’ve arrived. But the people I look up to had to learn, too. My dad had a first time dealing with the things I call him about.
There’s some comfort in that.
I’m going to have more questions. There will be things I get wrong and moments when I have no idea what I’m doing. I’ll have to keep learning as I go.
But today I helped someone with something I once needed help with.
And it reminded me that you don’t wake up one day having made it.
You become.