A Brief Timeout

No, I haven't stopped posting here. But after a three week flurry of posting I've hit a lull in writing while I relocate to a new house. It's going to take some time and I hope you will stick with me as my posts will be less frequent for a bit. Take time to read through my previous posts and please comment. I want this to be a helpful resource and would certainly answer questions if you leave them in the comments section.

Now It's Your Turn

Consider this…
• Based on your personality come up with a plan to spend substantial time with your children. This may or may not mean putting them on your calendar.

• Have you promised time with your kids and not kept your promise? This isn’t irreparable if you can start making promises you’re able to keep.

• Sit down with your children and ask them what they might like to do if you spent time together. Once they get over the shock you might be surprised at some of the ideas.

• What are some ways you can get involved in your kids’ school or with their friends to broaden your involvement in their lives?

Intentional Attention

Anyway, I was saying that when my kids came along this whole concept of time together was pretty foreign to me. Besides the lack of any good role model I was a confirmed workaholic and working in the church. Church work isn’t like a nine to five job so I had plenty of excuses for not being home at night or keeping a regular schedule. My wife did a wonderfully gentle job of helping me see the kids need for time with me.

I admit, though, that in my head if there wasn’t a specific task to be accomplished then I had a hard time justifying the investment of time. This isn’t an exaggeration. I can remember arguments with Elizabeth that were caused by my inability to see the value in “just hanging around.” If you’re not “doing” something then you’re just wasting time. Come to think of it that may be something I learned from my dad. If you’re not producing something then you’re lazy. I’m not saying I didn’t roll around on the floor with my kids when they were little. That was something I’d do before dinner or between dinner and the start of the prime time television shows. It was filler in those little gaps between doing something that was scheduled. The suggestion my wife made that stuck for me was the idea of actually putting the kids on my schedule. While this may sound heartless or cold, it actually was a very good idea for a guy who didn’t know how to relax and had no good model for how to spend time with his kids.

So, while the kids were still quite young I started scheduling time with them on my calendar. I found that the way I was wired it was necessary for me to make time for my kids in a very intentional way.

Jared comments...

I think this way of doing it is really good. You’re intentionally making time with your kids. It’s like you’re making a date with them. It’s better than making vague promises then blowing them off. The thing about scheduling time is that you have to be true to your word. My dad scheduled time to pick me up or call me and then blew me off. Don’t schedule time with your kids if you’re not going to follow through.

Tim continues...

So there were Jesse and Laina days in my schedule. We rarely had a set schedule within the day but we’d spend a good long portion of the day. Sometimes we’d go for a long drive and just talk, stop to play miniature golf. Sometimes it was a visit to a museum. Once Laina and I went ice-skating. As we’ve said before, it wasn’t about what we did; it was about being together and having the opportunity to get to know each other. As the kids got older I volunteered to coach sports with Jesse and direct plays Laina was in. These were scheduled activities and there were other kids involved. But this kind of interaction brought another benefit. As father I was comfortable in my kids’ spaces. I got to know their friends and was well known at their school. It wasn’t embarrassing for my kids to have dad around.

Maybe scheduling time with your kids is an idea that’ll work for you, and maybe not. And it wasn’t just the scheduled time that I spent with my kids. There were other times but the scheduling provided the large chunks of time when relationships could be built. That’s the key as you practice presence. Find large chunks of time where the main point is you being with your children. Not in front of the television or at the movies, but time when they have your undivided attention. There is not a single investment of any sort that will pay greater dividends than the investment of time.

Finding a Role Model

Over the course of the weekend and after talking quite a bit with Jared, I came to believe that the best way to share what we’re sharing here was to do it together. And, so far, it’s been an awesome experience spending time writing, talking and sharing our life experiences separated by 36 years and yet so connected.
We want very much to include Biblical examples of good fathering with each chapter. I’ve searched the scriptures looking for good stories of men who spent time with their sons. Unfortunately, there are none! Not that there aren’t good stories of men who loved their sons. Abraham loved Isaac very much. But he also had a son, Ishmael, with another woman who he sent away. Jacob had several sons but played favorites with Joseph and that turned out badly for quite some time. David had many sons he loved. But one attempted a coup, one raped his own half sister and one claimed the throne before David was actually dead. Even in the parable of the Prodigal Son the father is rejected by the younger son who, only after severe hardship, comes around to accept his father’s love. In the end the only father who is the best model of faithfulness, constancy and all things good is God, Himself. That’s a curious discovery that might be worth deeper consideration in the future. For now it seems that good father role models have always been hard to find!

An Experience Sadly All Too Common

In addition to the incredible sense of loss as a man who desperately wanted the attention of the dad in his life and never got it, I was also left with a void in my experience of what a father should do with his children. I could guess from what I wished I’d had but when it came time for me to be a dad it wasn’t something I’d seen done very well.

Without good role models, I was always unsure of myself. I used to think this was an isolated problem until I started hanging out with other men who were working through personal pain and life issues. One night, as we sat in a circle and shared, man after man acknowledged the pain suffered at the hands of a father. And many echoed my experience of being really uncertain about how to be a father themselves. Hearing all these men was an epiphany for me and, as I alluded to in the introduction, it was the moment that inspired the writing of this book. I wondered how many more men like us were out there wondering what being a father looks like and hoping to get it right.

Jared writes...

The day after that meeting Tim was telling me about all the guys the night before who had talked about the struggles they had with their fathers and the struggles they had with being a father. Everything he said hit home in a heartbeat. I felt like if I were old enough I could be in that group talking about my dad. When he told me about the book idea I got really excited and told him…pretty much insisted…that he write that book. I’m sure this book can help a lot of people. It can help men be better fathers and there are a lot of kids out here waiting for their dad’s to show up…like a knight on a white horse…to save them. That’s what my heart has been longing for. There’s a part of me that hopes my dad reads this book and gets a clue about what I need from him.

Board Games and Baseball

At the other end of my childhood I can remember my senior year in high school. My mom was the creative type. Among her many creations was an oversized chess board. She had taken an old round coffee table and covered it in squares of white and black faux leather in the center. The edges she upholstered in the black material with batting underneath to make the edges puffy. It sounds odd, and it probably was, but we had this large chess board in the living room. I’m not sure how it started, but for several months during my senior year my stepfather and I played chess, sometimes in stretches of several nights in a row. We hardly communicated in any other way. But we played chess. I think it became a way of measuring myself against him as I worked to win. Those weren’t exactly fun times, but they were times when I wasn’t uncomfortable around him.

Between kindergarten and senior year in high school there are very few positive memories of my dad being around. I competed in speech competitions and he never came to a single one. I played football, I wrestled, I was in school plays and I don’t remember him coming to a single thing. We never went fishing together. We never played catch that I recall.

Regarding that, one of the most powerful movies ever produced, in my opinion, is Field of Dreams. It presents itself as a baseball movie but it’s really a movie about fathers and sons. I went to see that movie in the theater with my good friend Wally. His father was also absent in his childhood. The two of us grown men sat sobbing in the theater touched by the story of a son estranged from his father. To this day when Kevin Costner meets his dad on that field in Iowa and says, “want to have a catch?” I break into tears. I never had a catch with my dad. Either one of them.

Quantity AND Quality

Slick and Uncle Virgil are two guys who got it right. And that doesn’t mean they were perfect or got everything about fathering right. The art of fathering isn’t about always being right or always being fair, or strong, or smart. Crucial to success in fathering is simply being there. It doesn’t have to be planned or scheduled, though there are times where that can be a good thing, too. A child craves time with dad. Not just in close proximity to dad but resting in the heart of dad’s attention.

Here’s where I have to say that, I think, all of us struggle in areas where we lack good role models. While I had some good times with Uncle Virgil, it was the exception rather than the rule. I lived with my dad and he simply never engaged with me. There are rare memories at two different ends of my life. When I was in kindergarten my stepfather drove a beer truck for Budweiser. To this day I associate the Budweiser logo with him and, understandably, I’m not a fan of that brand! But I do remember a time when he took me on his route. It was awesome. To sit way up high in that big truck and stop at all those bars and restaurants was a great thrill for me. But much more than that was the thrill of being with my dad. Of all my early childhood memories one of the most vivid is spending a single day with my dad on his delivery route. Spending time with your children has a dramatic impact.