Lucky Dad No. 24: It's a Smorgasbord, but You Can Only Eat One Course at a Time

I remember once watching a mother on a steep sandy beach, with a toddler in tow and the waves pounding the shore. Every so often, the baby would make a break for it, running toward the surf helter skelter. The mother was equal to the task, and she always sprang up and snatched the baby from the water’s edge just before it reached the waves.

We are all like that mother at the beach when our children first become mobile. Once your daughters learn to walk you are, literally, off to the races. They go from their first steps to a dead run in the blink of any eye. And, because a toddler has limited experience and absolutely no judgment, she will tear off after anything. You can watch her like a cat watches a goldfish, and she’ll still gets away. She tumbles down stairs, she touches the hot stove, she rolls into the fountain at the park, she bounces off the bed and on to the floor; on and on it goes. They usually survive. My little sister once fell ten feet off of a porch, landed on her diaper in the grass, took a deep breath, and let out a piercing scream. She was unharmed.

Francine and I called this period the Following Around Years. You can’t let them out of your sight, but you don’t want to restrain their curiosity, so you follow them around. Observe the young parent at the family party. Everyone else is chatting in a group, or watching The Game on television, or sitting down to the Thanksgiving feast. But not you. You are following the toddler around the unfamiliar house, while the child encounters every hazard and every breakable object. You typically have between three and fifteen seconds to intervene before disaster strikes, so you have to follow closely. The only other option is to hold the child on your hip or your lap, but if the child does not want to be restrained, then she will squirm and fuss so much that, soon enough, you are back to following her around.

After the Following Around Years come the Driving Around Years (aka the Minivan Years or the Soccer Mom Years), then the Raging Hormonal Years, and finally the Going-to-College Years. My favorite, though, was the sweet spot between ages five and ten, after the heavy lifting of being toddlers and before the storms of adolescence. When a child is very little, the parent is both god and slave. When they become adolescents, the parent is a combination of ATM and authority figure against which to rebel. But when they are between five and ten they are cute, they are funny, and they love being around their parents.

This is the age at which Dad is a superhero. It’s fun to be a superhero, but with great power comes great responsibility. I called home one afternoon from the office, telling Francine that I was leaving work, and would be home in about half an hour. Maura, who was five or six at the time, overheard the conversation, and went to the back steps to wait for me. Well, my departure from work was delayed by some last-minute task, and I didn’t get home until more than an hour after my phone call. It didn’t matter. Maura was sitting right there on the back steps when I came out of the garage. Francine told me she had been waiting there faithfully the whole time. Because Dad is a superhero.

Here’s the thing: it’s all good. Each phase of a child’s development is wonderful. Following around a curious infant is a delightful preoccupation. In fact, I would gladly, right now, interrupt my morning to swap places with my younger self, and follow one of my infant daughters around for a few hours. For the same reason, I would be glad to spend a the day driving my girls around to their various activities, or dealing with their teenage dramas. But that’s not an option. Raising a child is like eating at a smorgasbord loaded with the best food in the world, with only one limitation: you can only eat one course at a time, and you have to keep eating it whether you want to or not.