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The Grandson: A book?
Grandpa: That’s right. When I was your age, television was called books. And this is a special book. It was the book my father used to read to me when I was sick, and I used to read it to your father. And today I’m gonna read it to you.
– from The Princess Bride

Isn’t it funny that sometimes when I reflect back on my own childhood, I think back on all the lessons I should have learned quicker? I was always the contentious one when it came to listening without being a contrarian, always rebelling like a stubborn fool. And my dad, he’s always been the type to give me just enough rope and freedom to learn (and hang myself in the process). Actually, he’d teach me the right things initially, then I’d invariably rebel for no discernible reason, and only after that did he really take the opportunity to drive the point home. I call it learning by experience, since I did learn through experience (and that’s invaluable) but most people call it learning the hard way.

It is ironic that oftentimes it takes “getting old” to realize that all the “important” things were actually just that, important life lessons we should have learned the first time, aka “the easy way.” I mean, ultimately its true in many respects, the “like father, like son” quote that’s been repeated throughout the ages. Eventually you see the principles of life the same way as those that instilled them into you in the first place. That’s your job as a father right? To teach your kid right from wrong by passing on your own knowledge… I’m almost laughing my face off because now that I’m having my own son, I’m really hoping he’s not going to be as damn stubborn and hard-headed as I was. I definitely don’t wish that headache on anyone, much less myself. Sigh… it’s going to be ironic, the  day when I start repeating the same stuff my Dad told me over and over. Maybe I’m just being paranoid but something tells me that all my past rebelling will come full-circle and bite me in the ass soon enough…. Poetic justice indeed.

By the way, I think I know what I’m going to do with this whole Becoming a Dad series when it’s all said and done. At first, my initial idea was to gain enough of a readership to warrant some advertisers for expensive day-cares (more on that next month). But throughout time, this whole thing has really become a passion project for me. Now when our son is born, I’m going to take this series offline and turn it into a book to be put away. And when my boy is old enough  to the point of going through this experience himself, I’ll dust it off and pay the lesson forward to him as well.

🙂

This entry was posted on July 15, 2009 at 8:00 am and is filed under Fatherhood. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: dad, Fatherhood, first-time father, grandfather's revenge, lessons, Princess Bride