The house had been quiet for half an hour, the air so still I could hear the high-pitched motor of the condensate pump in the downstairs utility closet humming through the air vents upstairs. The only hint of life came from the occasional swoosh of traffic out on the street. A sense of calm settled over me.

I was experiencing something unusual for a parent: a moment to myself.

For the first time in what felt like months, nothing and no one demanded my time and attention. There was no calamity to contend with, no housework to be done, no emails or texts in need of reply, no bills immediately due, no homework to be done, no dinner to be cooked, no child to be shuttled to and fro, no appointments to schedule, no phone calls to return, and no honey-dos to, well, do.

The world of endless demands had come to a temporary halt. I was damn near giddy.

My wife had left for work that Monday morning, taking our daughter with her to drop off at school. I stayed home, grateful for the privilege to telecommute, and another full half hour before I had to plug back into The Matrix.

Like the character Neo from the movie franchise, I began to see my thoughts as binary code forms of zeros and ones rather than their surface-level appearance. A moment of clarity seized me.

I’d been saying yes when I should have said no.

I didn’t just need a vacation. I needed a sabbatical.

It wasn’t just being tired from adulting; I was burned out as a caregiver.

Relieve the everyday stress, every day

It’s a byproduct of multiple stressors. Raising a special needs child with little family support. Supporting a spouse through long stretches of unemployment. Having a fulfilling yet demanding career. Joining the ranks of the “sandwich generation,” those 30- and 40-somethings who are raising children while caring for aging parents. You make sacrifices over the years to shoulder the load, to carry on, to do all that needs to be done, only to realize you’ve neglected to prioritize the most important component in the equation: you.

It reminds me of the ubiquitous Internet quote from author Alexander Den Heijer: “You often feel tired, not because you’ve done too much, but because you’ve done too little of what sparks a light in you.”

Why do some of us in our roles as fathers, husbands, parents and caregivers find it so difficult to practice self-care? I don’t just mean the glitter-speak notions of yoga, spa days, and walks in the park (I’m game for those, by the way). I mean the practice of taking time to simply exist with no expectation of doing something or getting something done. What has happened to the habit of pausing the busyness of our lives long enough to examine how we ended up with so much to do in the first place?

This is especially true for men. Research released in 2021 showed: 

• 23% of men spend less than 30 minutes a day on activities that relax, de-stress and recharge themselves.
• 44% of men report “they could do a better job of taking care of themselves.”
• 83% of men agree that they do not worry about self-care since they don’t think it’s important.

Researchers and experts say men think of self-care practices as either feminine or unnecessarily self-indulgent. This prevents men from reaching an optimal level of healthiness, mental and physical, to help them meet the demands parenthood, work and life bring.

The moment I realized

So, like death and taxes, the exhaustion of life comes for us all — man or woman, parent or childless. But this unexpected hour of stillness helped me tune in to what sustains me.

There I sat at my home office desk, looking at the photos lining it. These snapshots are of the people, past and present, family and friends, who anchor my life.

There’s my cheerful daughter posing pretty in pink in a second-grade portrait. There’s my lovely wife flashing a smile as we walk through a nature park in Jamaica. Just over from her, I see my uncle Johnny, the pigeon fancier, in a loft tending to his birds. Next, I see my mother embracing 7-year-old me from behind as we stand in front of a grocery store display. Over there is my fraternity brother at his MBA graduation with his beaming parents. And there’s my grandmother in her younger years, footloose and fancy-free, strutting her stuff at a club. Reflecting on these memories tapped into the abundance of love in my life.

Filled with a deep sense of gratitude, I opened my work laptop and logged in.

I again felt ready to re-enter The Matrix.

Take a moment photo: © Antonioguillem / Adobe Stock.

Ever wonder what American parents could learn from the cultures of non-Western hunter-gatherer communities? Scientist Michaeleen Doucleff did. She reports her findings in her recent book, Hunt, Gather, Parent: What Ancient Cultures Can Teach Us About the Lost Art of Raising Happy, Helpful Little Humans.

Significantly, instead of just studying these cultures, Doucleff and her 3-year-old daughter lived among them. “None of these cultures are ancient relics, frozen in time,” she notes. They are still contemporary families with cellphones and televisions, but they do have “deeply rooted parenting traditions.”

Ancient wisdom from north of the Arctic Circle

From Inuit families above the Arctic Circle, Doucleff learns how to foster young children’s emotional regulation during temper tantrums and misbehavior. The key for parents? Stay calm and quiet as much as possible.

Doucleff describes Inuit parents in these situations in near-robotic terms. “Whenever children are upset — crying and screaming — the parents say very few words (words are stimulating). They make very few movements (movement is stimulating). And they show very little expression on their faces (again, emotion is stimulating),” she writes. “Parents aren’t timid or fearful. They still have a confidence about them. But they approach the child the way you might approach a butterfly on your shoulder: Gently. Slowly. Softly.”

When parents respond with calmness and quiet, “we give the child the opportunity to find that response in themselves,” Doucleff writes. “Over time, this practice teaches the child to regulate their emotions and respond to problems in a calm, productive way.”

When I first read these lines, I thought “no way”! How does a parent remain calm in the storm of an upset child? Doucleff acknowledges it takes much practice, but the long-term result will be worth it.

For example, during a child’s tantrum, “in the calmest, lowest-energy state possible, simply stand near the child, silently, and show them that you are close by, supporting them,” she writes. Upon a child’s misbehavior, try to “keep your expression flat. … look into the horizon above the child’s head or to their side.” As long as there is no imminent danger, try to “stay neutral and show them that you have zero interest in that behavior.”

In metaphoric terms, when parents respond to an angry child with calmness, they refuse to pick up the tug-of-war rope. Rather than yells breeding yells, calm breeds calm, eventually. To model emotional regulation and lower the energy of the situation, Doucleff recommends using imagery in your mind or humming a favorite song.

After calmness returns, the parent and child will be much more able to address the problems causing stress. This “wait-to-fix strategy” might result in a variety of resolutions. Doucleff borrows one idea from psychologist Larry Cohen in which problems are brought “into the play zone.” For example, “you and the child act out, in a lighthearted way, what happens when she won’t go to bed and you get angry or upset.”

Emotional regulation fosters helpfulness, autonomy

Two other ancient cultures Doucleff learns from are Maya families in Mexico and Hadzabe families in Tanzania.

Doucleff notes Maya children are known for their helpfulness, especially regarding household chores. She learned Mayas value toddlers as participants in family life. They invite young children to join them in their work around the house. As she notes, “toddlers everywhere are eager to be helpful — very eager.”

A toddler helping with chores like cleaning, sweeping, and folding laundry can slow parents down and create a mess. However, Mayas view the mess as an investment. “By encouraging the incompetent toddler who really wants to do the dishes now, then over time, they’ll turn into the competent nine-year-old who still wants to help,” she writes.

The children’s participation in meaningful, family-oriented chores makes them feel a sense of belonging. If children are kept from participating, they learn “their role is to play or move out of the way.” They also “will come to learn that helping is not their responsibility.”

The parenting lesson Doucleff learns from the Hadzabe families echoes the ancient Inuit advice: stay quiet as much as possible. Strive for minimal interference with children’s natural development.

Doucleff explains the Hadzabe “parent from a different vantage: they believe children know best how to learn and grow. Anything a parent says — the vast majority of the time — will only get in the child’s way.” She learned that as a parent she needed to “‘wait-a-bit’ before you instruct, direct, or issue a command.” (In fact, in playful fashion, the Hadzabe nicknamed her “Wait-a-bit.”)

Doucleff suggests an experiment for today’s parents: “Take out your phone and set it to record for twenty minutes. Count how many questions, comments, and demands you make to your child during that time.” You may be surprised. Also, try hard to develop children’s autonomy by letting them “order at restaurants, set up after-school activities, settle disputes with friends and, when possible, talk with teachers, coaches, and instructors about successes and mistakes.” If we embrace such a less-is-more, “low-talk parenting style,” we can “join the millions of parents around the world—and across history—who step behind the child, wait-a-bit, and let the child make their own decisions . . . and their own mistakes.”  

Photo: © Odua Images / Adobe Stock.

The more I’m around my kids, the more I feel like I’m back in college. My children remind me an awful lot about what it was like to live with my old (and not so great) roommates.

Dishes. My kids leave their dishes wherever they took their last bite of food. Whether it be the couch, the floor in front of the television or the kitchen table, it’s easy to figure out where my child or former college roommates ate their last meal. And why is there a plate in the bathroom? Gross.

Cups. How many cups do my kids need at bedtime? If you use my daughter’s room as an example, the answer is nine. Cups are stacked up pyramid style on the nightstand making it look like a carnival game. Add beer cans in place of water cups and place them all over the house, and it’s exactly what my college dorm room looked like.

Clothes. I’m beginning to think my kids don’t change their clothes; they shed them. Clothes just sort of fall off their bodies. This “shedding” is often in the kitchen, the hallway or on the stairs, but rarely near clothes hampers in bedrooms. And kids and college roommates: Can we all agree to stop shoving socks in the couch cushions?

Food thieves. Have you ever tried to hide a snack from your kids? The Girl Scout cookies we bought this year lasted approximately three days. And we bought six boxes! I remember trying to hide the occasional delicacy when I was back in college. I’d spend $8 of my $20 weekly grocery budget on Oreos, only to come home at night and find my roommate asleep on a pile of chocolate crumbs.

Yes, living with kids is a lot like living with bad college roommates, however there is one advantage of cohabitating with the latter. At least you only had to live with your roommate for a year before you could agree to part ways.

A version of this first appeared on Indy’s Child. Photo: © Antonioguillem / Adobe Stock.

Help! I just bought a lawn edger.

I blame the pandemic, which has resulted in so many of us spending more time at home and in our yard. I’m requesting help because I’ve always associated lawn power tools with old-timey dads. Specifically, one of my childhood neighbor dads who would regularly spend hours perfecting his yard with a host of noisy contraptions.

Am I becoming that dad? But I’m a new-timey dad who spent many years as an at-home caregiver!

Maybe that doesn’t matter when it comes to yard work. Granted, I have seen a growing number of moms who mow their lawn. But dads seem to remain the vast majority of mowers, for whatever reasons. As I thought about these yard dads, a continuum of three types emerged in my mind:

1. Speedy, Low-Tech Yard Dad

This dad tends to be young, have very young children, and many domestic duties. The result is little time (and money) for yard care. He mows his lawn quickly, sometimes not even bagging the grass clippings. If he even has time to rake or sweep anything, it will be with an actual rake or broom, not a leaf blower.

During all yard work, his goal is to race back to his family responsibilities as swiftly as possible. For this dad, the children growing in the house are more important than the weeds growing in the yard. If these yard dads were to post a sign, it might read “My Yard Looks Good Enough for Now.”

2. Patient, Team-Effort Greenskeeper Father

This dad tends to be middle-aged and have tweens or teens. He has somehow managed to coax his reluctant children — usually boys, but sometimes girls — into joining him in the yard work. This dad was more common in previous generations, as there has been a decline of chores in today’s culture in favor of more schoolwork and extracurricular activities. Hence, his achievement is quite impressive. In rare cases, you may not even see this dad in his yard. The kids work all by themselves!

The appearance of this dad’s yard is usually acceptable but not perfect. Part of the reason is that he refuses to invest in gadgets like electric trimmers, for that would make his kids’ chores too easy. If the children were to post a sign, it might read “Our Yard Passed Our Father’s Inspection.”

3. Intense, Shed-of-Tools Lord of Landscaping

This dad tends to be older, and as teens move out of his house, power tools move into his yard. He glories in high-tech mowers, corded weed whackers, high-decibel leaf blowers, and (ahem) power edgers. The accumulation of these toys leads him to an obsessive delusion: “I need a shed for all these tools.”

The appearance of this dad’s yard is usually immaculate. As he dons his goggles and traipses in and out of his shed with myriad devices, he is more like a part-time landscaper than a lawn-mowing father. He spends so many hours in the yard that passersby sometimes wonder if he has been banished there by his wife. If these types of yard dads were to post a sign, it might read “My Yard Could Kick Your Yard’s Butt.”

The Yard Dads of My Life

Which brings me back to that edger I bought. While I hope to never own a shed, I have noticed my number of power tools and yard hours increasing. Reasons include my body starting to age and my nest starting to empty. But I have also noticed a new reason: nostalgia.

My own father was a Team-Effort Yard Dad, and I mowed my childhood lawn countless times as a teen. As a result, the muscle memory of yard work makes me feel young again. Until it makes me feel old again.

In a larger sense, taking good care of a lawn may simply be an aging dad’s way of transferring all the care-giving energy he used to spend on his growing children. Eventually, children no longer need intense parenting, but the yard forever demands — and rewards — attention.

Photo: © Tap10 / Adobe Stock.

Shame on all dads if this COVID-19 shut-in doesn’t forever close the gender gap with our wives in the battle for household-related equity.

Let’s admit it: While today’s dads help far more around the house than our fathers did – nearly three times as much — most still are not doing their fair share. Women in the United States spend on average of 72 minutes more a day than men doing housework and performing childcare tasks, according to the most recent U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistic data. On any given day, 22% of men reported doing housework, such as cleaning or laundry, whereas 50% of women reported doing the same; days when 43% of men did food preparation or cleanup activities, 70 percent of women also did.

Pulling even, however, is not only about performing more of these routine chores we should already be doing. I can best illustrate what I mean by describing my pre-pandemic morning routine.

Each weekday during the school year, I’d help get the kids’ breakfast together before unceremoniously exiting just as my five children reach a fevered pitch of gathering books and papers while snarfing their Cheerios. With a quick glance and a confident, “Welp, gotta go! Have a great day, all,” I’d leave, and turn off my dad switch for the next eight hours or so.

My wife, on the other hand, has no such shut-off switch. Even though she holds down a part-time job while attending graduate school, she does not convince herself that once she physically sends the kids on their way that she can mentally do the same. This subconscious difference, this ability to compartmentalize, is a major reason dads and moms don’t always perform an equal share of familial burdens.

Children bear witness to parental gender gap

The kids see me leave before their mom for work each day. Why wouldn’t they automatically assume that my job must be more valuable, more important and less interruptible than mom’s work?

I’m also gone from home for a longer period of time most days. As a result, my children instinctually ask their mother to help them with homework, chaperone a class field trip or to take them to the next assembly — even if I am there and available to lend a hand.

Topping it off, my five little ones have heard me outwardly relish the escape going to the office provides me. “Sitting in gridlock beats listening to this middle-school bickering any day!” I might say. How can they take me seriously as an equal household/parenting partner if I charge out the door snickering about my rank in the pecking order?

As seen each day through the eyes of my kids, my work is a more important piece of my life and ours as a family than their mother’s is. This coronavirus pandemic can change that – and it must.

Parents in dual-income families like mine are now on equally clumsy footing. Together, we struggle to homeschool our kids while juggling our professional responsibilities. Gone is the daily respite of leaving for the office. I’m at home indefinitely with my family, my dad switch locked in the “on” position. I have no choice but to be up to the challenge or risk forever losing credibility in the eyes of my kids as being on the same level as their mom when it comes to being a true caregiver.

But our dad switches must also stay steadfastly on when this awful, disruptive virus finally relents. That is when the rubber will indeed hit the road.

This is the same rubber we dads should be telling our teens to use during our “birds and bees” sex discussion.

It’s the same road in front of our homes that should serve as a makeshift baseball diamond where we play catch with our sons and daughters whenever we can.

It’s attending the next PTA meeting where a dad’s perspective should be welcomed and appreciated.

It’s taking home our newborns without the worry about having to hurry back to work the following day.

Pulling even is bigger than just doing so in my household or yours. It’s a global need to close the gender gap on issue of parenting equality. It means overcoming decades of conscious efforts and subconscious thinking that make people believe fathers are inferior as caregivers. This will allow us to garner the credibility needed to tackle bigger issues at the root of household gender equity — issues like requiring men’s restrooms to be equipped to allow us to change our infant’s diapers; guaranteed universal, paid paternal leave; and ensuring a fair balance on the legal scales of custodial courts.

COVID-19 can help change fatherhood forever if dads make it so. Shame on us if we don’t.

Photo: © micromonkey / Adobe Stock.

I’ve heard parenting described as a vocation where the goal is to work yourself out of a job. Seems pretty accurate to me.

As a longtime stay-at-home parent, I see myself doing it all the time. In fact, as I write, the washing machine is spinning noisily and the dryer is droning away, and I didn’t start either of them. My 14-year-old twin sons are doing their laundry today, a job I did for them for years. I showed them the ropes a few months ago and now, begrudgingly and with a bit of prompting from me, they’ve been doing it on their own.

Late last week, I found one of them riding the lawn mower, finishing the last part of our long backyard. The other will do it this week. There’s a lot to learn about mowing and there is an inherent danger in it, so I had been reluctant to show them how. But this year, I figured they are both tall and strong enough to wrestle the old Cub Cadet around the yard. I’ll show them how to do the trim work with the push mower in the coming weeks.

This morning, I woke up — later than usual — to the smell of sausages and potatoes. I went into the kitchen to start my coffee but I couldn’t tell if someone had made breakfast. The counters were wiped, the dishes in the machine, even the frying pan was hanging clean and dry on the rack. I thought maybe I hadn’t smelled right or something.

I asked the boy on the Nintendo Switch in the living room if he’d had breakfast. He had, and for the first time, had cleaned everything up.

Perhaps some of you are thinking to yourself: Damn straight, ‘bout time they pulled their weight around the old homestead. Yeah, I get that, But, and I might be criticized for this, I didn’t have children to do my work for me. An acquaintance of mine called me late one night decades ago to tell me his toddler had gotten him a beer from the refrigerator. He’d, uh, trained her, I guess, to do it and he thought it was a hoot. I still know the daughter and she stopped getting his fucking beers when she turned 12 — they were never close.

There are, I’m sure, dozens of other examples just like these of me working myself out of jobs. I’m OK with it, of course, but there is another description of parenting that I’d like to share with you: Parenting is just one long damn goodbye.

Goodbye can be a good thing

I always thought of doing my boys’ laundry as something I was supposed to do for them not because of them. Did it overwhelm me at times? Yes, but not often. Mostly, it was just another chore, a part of my job, just labor. I’d set timers for when a load was done, I folded on a custom-built folding table just beside the dryer, the left-handed boy’s stuff on the left, the other’s on the right. I’d stand and fold and pair and pile and … think.

I can’t begin to tell you how much you can learn about your children from doing their laundry. You learn what they favor, what pants and shirts, what socks are worn most often – that kind of thing. But, there’s a bit more. All those loads of laundry gave me a sense of how good life has been to them, to us. Jeans with holes and grass stains, mended and scrubbed, are a reminder that they are healthy, that the yard is green and long enough to shag flies. A fruit-punch-stained white shirt is from a birthday party at the laser tag place. A blood stain on the collar of a gray hoodie is from a cut on the forehead from a killer tube ride at the lake. I wasn’t folding clothes; I was folding memories.

When they were really little, 2 years old maybe, I’d take them for rides on the tractor without the mower engaged. We’d laugh and curve around the yard, them marveling at the wildness of it all, me at their delight in it. As they got older, I remember them watching me mow and feeling like a mounted knight, a sweating hero for them in the blistering August sun. In fact, there’s a picture of one of them, watching me go around the yard, standing on the porch with a shoe in his hand, hoping for a ride. A few years later, the fascination with it faded, but I still remember their little faces watching me. It felt good.

Today, as I look upon the backyard from the dining room table, thinking about laundry and tractors, they are making lunch for themselves. More of a raiding party, really. They are heating leftovers and adding this and that, improvising as one does in the kitchen. I watch and listen and think back to a time when I made every meal for them, never really imagining a day when I didn’t have to.

One long damn goodbye. Goodbye to the closeness I felt to them, handling all those clothes, steeped in dirt and stains and memory.

One long damn goodbye. Goodbye to knowing I’m watched, appreciated, needed. To feeling like a hero, a man, a father on my gas-powered steed.

One long damn goodbye. Farewell to cooking every meal, preparing every snack, packing every lunch, buying every banana, pear and apple, roast and chop.

You may be thinking, Shouldn’t I be glad to not have all that work to do? Maybe I should.

But the truth is, I never really minded.

Some of my favorite images of the boys are of them walking away from us. It’s funny, I’ve heard that from many parents. It’s as though we know the goodbyes are coming, that we know they will someday walk fully out of view.

Later this summer, I’ll watch them march into high school, confident and strong. I’ll watch their strong shoulders and high heads and know they are heading in the right direction — away from me, away from childhood, into tomorrow.

And, I’ll know I’ve done my job, I am doing my job, I will still do my job.

The damn goodbyes though, they are really hard.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bill Peebles left a 30-year career in the restaurant business to become a stay-at-home dad to twin boys. He writes a blog, I Hope I Win a Toaster, that makes little sense. He coaches sometimes, volunteers at the schools, plays guitar, and is a damn good homemaker. He believes in hope, dreams, and love … but not computers.

Boys walking away photo courtesy of Bill Peebles

The chairs in the family room are in constant use, their seats warm against the press of pants and careless give of sun-dried towels. There are two of these chairs, set just so to encourage casual conversation while still open to the glow of the fireplace, a request to the piano or whatever is sent from the kitchen. It is a cozy corner, softly lit by stylish lamps and stars of varying distance. The dogs dine there twice daily, the bar against the wall is visited somewhat more so.

These chairs grow heavy beneath the weight of our day, and heavier still the following and again after that. Their comfort is taken for granted and often ignored. They have grown unseen, buried by the wear of the masses.

They offer only sacrifice, appeasing gods cured and laundered, openly mocking the folded as the creases quietly settle in. I stack the freshly spun atop those that were stacked before, and I long to sit upon them. Such are the makings of my daydream.

To be fair, things are getting done. There is a chart on the wall, marked with chores assigned by name, but it has not made contact with a human eye since the ink upon it dried, possibly longer. This is partly due to tasks being known and also those we would deny. Laundry is, obviously, the latter.

Every day, the boys have animals to tend, on both ends, dishes to wash and dry, and rugs to vacuum. Then there are other jobs that go forgotten until, magically, the hundredth utterance of them flickers light bulbs above their respective heads. Those tasks are then done quickly in full half-ass fashion, and upon a parenting review, again but with feeling. It is dance with consequence, and the boys know all the steps.

Chores teach responsibility, empathy and teamwork. Also, how to yell at the people you love despite everyone accepting the inevitable, an underrated skill that will serve children well come the ghosts of Thanksgiving future and the politics they discover.

And still, I wash load after load, drying some on the line and some by machine, depending on the garment and the spin of the season. Then they are placed upon the chairs in the family room, and they are left to die.

Why is it, no matter how well-oiled, family mechanics always seem to break down somewhere? Ours pile upon the chairs, and the blame is flung everywhere, fierce and freely.

Yet, the laundry unites us, too. In our collective denial we are bound together, and while the path there is littered with single socks and broken hangers, we walk it all the same. At some point, after a few days of digging through piles of clean clothes to find our outfits, our outfit stands at attention (because there is no place to sit), and we chat, we laugh, we fold. Closets fill, chairs empty, and the chores of a family are all related.

The chairs never get their hopes up.

Consider this an early Father’s Day tribute to my dad. Put it in the category of “Things I Did When I Was a Kid That My Own Kid BETTER Not Do.”

When I was 12, I had a manageable chore list. Nothing extensive or unreasonable, although at the time I’m sure I thought I was doing the equivalent of those orphans in the Industrial Revolution who worked in a sooty, life-endangering factory for 14 hours at a stretch.

I was responsible for washing the dinner dishes. Vacuuming the living room. Cleaning my room and bathroom.

Scooping dog poop from the backyard.

That was the one. That was the chore I dreaded.

I loved our dog, a mop-headed cocker spaniel-poodle mix named Sophie. But I was bewildered at how a dog the size of a toaster could put out 50 pounds of crap a day.

And I absolutely hated being the one who had to pick it up.

Have dog, will scoop poop

My dad had a very specific rule about clearing dog poop: it had to be done every seven days. No one likes walking around the backyard, he said, feeling lush, velvety grass under their bare feet, and then experiencing a crunch-then-squoosh between their toes.

I understood that. And, since Sophie was my dog, all canine maintenance duties fell to me. Feeding, walking, and generally snuggling (all of which I was happy to do). But the biggest part of the gig was poop scooping.

I don’t even know why I hated doing it that much. I had a nice, wide plastic shovel and plenty of paper lunch bags. It didn’t take much skill to walk in a careful grid, spot the poop, lean down, scoop up the nuggets, and drop them in a bag. You could clear the yard of turd bombs in less than 20 minutes. No big deal.

But I still hated it.

Every Saturday morning, I would conveniently forget the job I had to do outside. I’d hunker down in my room, happily listening to music and reading comics, and then my dad would call to me.

“Seth, it’s time.”

“Time for what?”

“You know what.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Son, please go outside and do your job.”

“What job?”

Selective Amnesia, I believe, is the correct term for my affliction.

“GO OUTSIDE AND SCOOP THE POOP.”

“OK, OK! God, you don’t have to yell.”

I would drag myself out of my room, get my tools (scooper, paper bags, heavy crown of martyrdom), and go outside to grumble my way through filling God knows how many bags with Sophie’s prolific output. Typically, that 20-minute job turned into three hours of oppressed servitude.

And then, one morning, I discovered a way to make the job way more fun.

The incident

Let me switch perspectives now, and talk of this particular Saturday from my father’s point of view:

I remember that my son Seth did not enjoy this particular chore when he was young. However, it remains a mystery to me why,  for years, the boy would rather spend two hours complaining than the 10 minutes it took to simply do it. 

On the Saturday in question, I did request that my son rise, get dressed, get the scooper, and clear the yard of our dog’s droppings. As was his fashion, he complained and procrastinated to an impressive degree, but after the whining was completed, he did go outside, scooper and bag in hand, albeit begrudgingly. I went upstairs to my office to do some work where, as it happened, I also happened to have a view of our back yard.

After a few minutes,  I glanced out the window to check on Seth’s progress. My mouth dropped open.

I was, in short, completely flabbergasted by what I was seeing.

I called to my wife: “Robin, you have to come in here.”

“What?”

“You need to come in here.”

“Why?”

“You need to come in here and look at this.”

“Look at what?”

“Just … you have to see what your son is doing.”

She joined me at the window and suddenly her expression matched mine as we watched in disbelief at what our son, our flesh and blood offspring, was doing.

“Oh, my Lord. Is he doing what I think he’s doing?” she said.

“He is.”

“I can’t believe it.”

“I know.”

“Oh, my Lord. He’s about to do it again.”

“There he goes.”

“OH. MY. LORD.”

My turn again. So, out in the yard, I had no idea my parents were watching me, first in shock, then in anger, then with uncontrollable laughter.

Why were they laughing? Because rather than simply scooping and dropping poop into a bag, I was instead aiming my plastic shovel skyward, drawing back, and flinging the shit over the fence.

Into our neighbor’s yard.

I. WAS FLINGING DOG SHIT. INTO OUR NEIGHBOR’S YARD.

On Saturday morning. In broad daylight.

Unaware my parents were staring from the upstairs window, I continued to wing big ol’ nuggets over the fence, emptying our yard, and filling our neighbors. (The neighbors, by the way, had no dog.)

I developed a variety of techniques. I named them.

The Whiplash.

The Catapult.

The Over the Shoulder.

The Up, Up, and Away.

The Shit Bullet.

With each new toss, my technique gained more artistry. I gave each throw a wind-up, sometimes a leap and spin before a flick of my wrist sent the poop skyward, arcing gracefully in the sky and over the fence.

I was enjoying myself immensely.

I began wishing there was an Olympic event for this. Competitive Poop Throwing.

It hits the fan

Meanwhile, my parents continued to watch, equally shocked and entertained, crying with laughter as they saw me perfect my new talent. After a few minutes, they realized what I didn’t: at some point, our neighbors on the other side of the fence were likely to emerge from their own back door, hoping to enjoy their morning coffee on their patio, and instead get smacked in the face by flying dog shit.

Mom and Dad collected themselves, wiping away the tears of laughter, put on their Angry Parent faces, and opened the window, making me freeze in mid-throw:

“SETH ANDREW TAYLOR, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING!?!”

And with that, I was completely and fully busted, my future Olympic career ending before it began.

I don’t really remember the repercussions. I recall being yelled at. (I didn’t know how hard they’d been laughing from inside until years later when they started telling the story to friends, relatives, girlfriends, and basically anybody in town who knew me.) I have a vague memory of being forced to scale our back fence and retrieve all the poop I had sent over. It took forever (there was a lot), and I did so afraid that the neighbors would see me, come out and ask exactly what was going on.

Decades later, my dad still tells this story, and he does so with dramatic flair (despite the fact that his son is now a 46-year-old grown damn man, thank you very much). He relishes every detail, right down to the look on my face when he yelled out the window and I whirled around, instantly knowing I’d been caught doing something — well, just downright gross.

He particularly loves telling this story to my daughter, who never grows tired of hearing it. It’s their tradition. It’s their very own “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas.” (Gather round, kids, it’s time for the story of the Boy Who Sent Poop To The Sky!) Even now, at 15, she laughs hysterically when he spins the tale. The two of them, along with my mom, fall to pieces every time, laugh/crying like idiots. Every. Damn. Time.

As for me, I just sit and listen, remembering, and feeling grateful that my daughter doesn’t have a dog.

My son’s room is a perpetual mess. Hey, he’s 7, I don’t blame him. My office is a mess, too. And I’m 7.29 times older than he is!

But last week, when I could no longer find the covers on his bed because of the layers of stuff strewn across it, I felt enough was enough. (My office is almost at that point, but not quite.) I resolved that we had to clean it up.

So we spent his pre-bedtime activities (usually spent reading) by clearing his bed, putting toys away, throwing away broken toys, shoving Legos into boxes. We are in frenzied activity mode .. well, I was. I was pulling everything off of the bed, trying to put it in piles, threatening to throw stuff away. My son, however, seemed perfectly content to move one book at a time and then lovingly place each book with tender care into its proper place.

During this time, I found a bunch of what I thought were failed attempts at paper airplanes. Crumpled up and half folded pieces of white paper, very few with writing on them, that have been lying on the bed for weeks. I repeatedly ask, “Are these trash?” To which my son doesn’t respond. “I assume that means yes,” I said, mostly for my own benefit, then I threw them in the trash.

Amazingly, we manage to do everything we need to do, clearing off the bed and making it mostly presentable about five minutes before bedtime. About three hours later, as I am going to bed, I feel a sense of accomplishment, and a small self-loathing for not having had him do five minutes every day before he goes to bed.

The next morning, my son gets up in plenty of time for school and starts getting dressed. Suddenly I hear a wailing.

He comes into the kitchen, actual tears in his eyes and a couple of crumpled pieces of paper in his hand, saying, “You threw away my airplanes. You threw away Frogger!”

I tried to explain, but he would not listen. He’s wailing and crying, and saying, “I need Mom. You are the worst dad ever!” I gather him in my arms to comfort him and he starts kicking me. I told him that we could rebuild them. He said, “I’ll NEVER BE ABLE TO RECREATE THEM! WAAAHHHH!”

Apparently within all those crumpled pieces of paper were some experimental airplanes that he had worked on weeks before, and my tossing them away clearly was a capital offense.

I managed to calm him down, and get him to school, just barely. By the end of the day, there was still some residual anger, and by the next day he was back to his normal loving self.

I completely understand his anger, but at the same time I see it as completely irrational. I told him I didn’t mind him getting crazy upset about something important. But these are not important. (If I had been the worst father in the world, I probably would have destroyed the rest of his airplanes. But I resisted that urge. I am not a monster.)

I’m upset that he kicked me, which should never be the right response to anything, irrational or not.

But I forgive him. As I said up in the first paragraph, he’s 7. I don’t blame him.

A version of this “worst dad ever” tale first appeared on Dadapalooza.

DISCLOSURE: This is a sponsored post from Swiffer for its #SwifferDad campaign.

Cleaning is a chore most of us can do without. For me, I grew up having to do several chores, including washing my clothes and vacuuming. If Swiffer products existed back then, cleaning would have been not only tolerable but dare I say enjoyable. That’s how much I actually like Swiffer.

My family has used these products for years. They are easy to use, easy to find and very effective. I feel as if I have accomplished something when I use a Swiffer to get to those hard-to-reach dust bunnies.

Swiffer is certainly a family-friendly product. That’s why I was so excited for its  #SwifferDad campaign in which it partnered with one of America’s favorite TV dads, Anthony Anderson from the ABC sitcom black-ish, to try to change the perception that fathers don’t (or can’t) handle the “dirty work” in their homes.

“As a working dad and husband myself – and one who cleans floors and drives the carpool – this is a story I can relate to and am excited to help tell,” said Anderson, the creative adviser of the campaign, said. “We cook! We clean! We do housework! What I love about the #SwifferDad campaign is that it’s about celebrating the hands-on role that most of us play – it portrays who we really are as modern dads. And the best part is that this shift to shared responsibility for chores is having a positive effect on our kids.”

Swiffer knows that dads are doing more house cleaning than ever before. I couldn’t be more pleased that they are supporting modern dads. Dads today are pitching in nearly two times more than their dads did, according to information provided by the Swiffer Cleaning Index. In fact, the roles have shifted. Half of today’s dads say they do most of the household cleaning and the divvy up chores with their significant others, according to Swiffer.

For me, my fatherly housework started even before my daughter’s birth with cleaning an old bedroom to prepare it for her arrival. To be honest, that room had become something out of that show Hoarders. To say it needed cleaning was an understatement. What it needed was a second chance.

I went to work on removing items, massive purging, and cleaning and dusting. I am proud of the work I put into that room to make it a comfortable and clean environment for my daughter. I have vowed to never again let dirt and clutter get the better of me.

One of the reasons why I feel it is important to do my part is because I want my daughter to see me as clean. I want her to know that men clean and her dad cleans. I don’t make it look like a chore, so she often wants to help. Yes, my daughter will use a Swiffer to dust the bookshelf or clean under the couch. I believe my willingness to clean in front of her is why she is willing to help. Some people may still believe in that sexist idea that cleaning is only women’s work, but my daughter will know better because Swiffer and I are keeping it real.

Swiffer recently sent me a “big green box” with a Swiffer Wet Jet and accessories. Ten years ago, I would not have been remotely excited about this. However, I know just how easy Swiffer products are to use, so I smiled and giggled like a child opening a birthday gift. I knew that this Wet Jet was going to help my family and me keep our new home clean. The biggest asset is the speed at which I can clean with a Wet Jet. Thanks to Swiffer, I have more time to save the world from supervillains with my daughter.

Since I was given a second “big green box,” I had to decide which fellow father would receive the Wet Jet. It was an easy decision. I had to give it to one of my best friends, Erik, a true modern dad. He is an active and dedicated father who can easily handle any task in his household. Erik was excited to receive the box and even said he had wanted a Wet Jet and would put it to use immediately.

With my schedule changing, I decided to take on more cleaning chores. Swiffer and the Wet Jet will be essential tools in my cleaning. And lots of music. What? You don’t listen to tunes when you clean? You don’t know what you’re missing. Get a Wet Jet and other Swiffer products, turn on some of your favorite tunes and join the rest of us #SwifferDads. Dads clean, too!

DISCLOSURE: The writer received compensation, including the products mentioned above, in exchange for this post. The opinions expressed are completely his.