This one’s for all the mommy bloggers. Especially this one, who makes me feel like uber-dad. She’s used to tell me I should do a daddy blog, but somehow I got side-tracked into this wacky anti-war, pro-hockey etc. blog. Anyway here ya go, Wacky Mommy: Thirteen Ways to be a Better Dad (from the perspective of a working Dad of a 4 y.o. and a 7 y.o.).

1. Love the mother of your children. She needs it and deserves it.
2. Say goodbye to your children before you leave for work, even if they’re still asleep.
3. Take them to a river and let them throw rocks into it.
4. Teach your kids safe, creative ways to channel aggressive energy. Build a block village with them, let them play with it for a while, then tell them to destroy it.
5. Be firm and consistent, not angry and impatient.
6. Spend as much time with them as you possibly can, but…
7. Take some time for yourself once in a while.
8. Don’t sweat the difficult stages. Most don’t last more than 6 months.
9. Tell your children about your childhood fears. Tell them if you wet the bed, or were afraid of the dark, or feared tornadoes or nuclear war.
10. Sing them a funny naughty song or playground rhyme from when you were their age. (“There’s a place in France….”) Don’t overdo it. See #1.
11. Teach them that with good manners, they can charm the pants off grown-ups and get exactly what they want.
12. Turn off the TV.
13. Put them to bed every night. Read them two or three stories.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 23rd, 2006 at 10:07 pm and is filed under Me, Thursday Thirteen. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.