Thomas Merton Was Wrong

I’m experimenting with a new blog on Fatherhood over at WordPress.com. In the first post, I introduce the blog along with the notice that simply having the desire to be a better dad isn’t enough—I have to actually become one.

Read the article after the jump.

I’m not a great dad. I get frustrated too easily. I get angry with the girls too often. I don’t cherish the time I spent with them now enough, which they’ll be able to pick up on more as the years go by, which will only make the relationship harder when they get older.

Thomas Merton once said regarding our relationship with God, our heavenly father: I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. The notion that, we hope, the simply wanting to be better before the eyes of God is a good thing in and of itself.

In terms of spirituality and theology, there’s something powerful there. Even within fatherhood, my kids wanting to impress and please me, does, in fact, make me smile. I’d still be proud of them even if they didn’t want to make me proud, but them wanting to is icing on the cake. The other way, though, it is simply wrong. The kids, at the end of the day, don’t want a dad who isn’t great and only desires to be better. They want a better dad, even if they don’t realize that a dad could be better for another twenty or so years.

As this is an experiment of something new, I’m going to start chronicling the things I’m doing to actually be a better dad. While partly to serve as a personal log of what I’ve tried, what I’ve seen different, and ideas for the future, I hope that it will be useful to other dads out there that know they need to be a better dad to their kids and are looking for both ideas themselves and a community of support—if nothing else with me, and perhaps, with other dads.

All that said, welcome. Leave comments. God knows I have no idea what I’m doing even though I already have three kids.

The common characters:

V: My wife of 5+ years

O: My oldest who is 4 going on 14

MC: Our middle daughter who is an absolute joy of complete stubbornish

T: Our youngest at 18 months who is growing up way too damn fast

Me: A guy who does web geekiness by day and is a geek by night

photocredit: flickr