Preparing Daddy for the First Day of School

Rodney reminds us that it is not only mothers who have a hard time sending their kids to school. He shares his tips for preparing father’s for school:

Because my biological father was not around for much of my childhood, I made the decision early on to find a job that would keep me near my kids. My dad was the quintessential earner and provider, flush with old fashioned values about who should do the parenting. He handled the whippings and mom handled pretty much everything else. Don’t get me wrong…he was a good man. I just knew I wanted more for my kids in the way of time together and emotional awareness.

All these years later, I find myself working as a writer from home and loving my two beautiful twin daughters from close up. I changed their diapers alongside my wife Julie and took care of them every single day. I got to see their first steps, first words and first everything else right beside my bride. Because of that, I have been blessed with a special relationship.

As the first day of school approached for them, I suddenly realized that I was not going to have them there each day as I worked. Gone would be the distractions, interruptions, lunches, last minute diaper changes and morning walks down our old dirt road beside the house. All of this was to be replaced by a cold, dark, scary classroom miles away that I just knew would be filled with danger.

Valerie and Brooke were all for it. It appeared that I was the only one in need of some counseling.

As that day grew even closer and we visited the school and the teachers, I felt a little bit better. I still saw my old hateful teacher from third grade in each teacher I met.

Surely they would be mean when we turned our backs, right? Of course not, but I felt that way.

Then I came to realize that the girls would have to ride the bus that first year. The bus…

That was pretty much all it took for me to start thinking seriously about homeschool. It never happened and we ended up preparing for the first days of public school anyway.

After countless conversations about what to do in every situation including an asteroid hitting the earth, I finally resigned myself to the fact that they were going.

The first day of school came and my little Brooke and Valerie were nervous. I put on a strong face and helped calm them down.

Ok….so that is not exactly true. My wife calmed them down while I nearly fell apart inside.

Sensing my distress, Valerie came up to me and said, “Daddy, here is my blanket in case you need to think of me throughout the day.”

She handed me here blanket that she had carried around since her first steps and walked away without a care in the world. Brooke soon followed with her Dora doll and asked me to keep it on my chair while I wrote that day.

I did.

As the school bus pulled up in front of the house, I watched them nervously climb aboard as I watched from my chair on the porch. Every fiber of my being screamed to chase that bus down and return them to my lap where they belonged, but I did not.

Instead, I sat there and accepted it. Alone with my sadness and incredibly lonely, I called my wife and we talked about it for a bit. That helped, but the loneliness remained.

As the day went on, I did my job. I went through the motions and plugged along. Eventually after what seemed like days, I heard the big yellow bus pull up outside. Off popped my two little angels with the biggest smiles I had ever seen. When they got in the house, I could not understand the torrent of babble that was coming out, but I knew it was happy babble.

As they went to put away their book bags and grab the snack I had laid out, I realized that it was worth it.

Like any other thing involving our kids, the pain that we experience along the journey is always worth it in the end. Pain is inevitable, but a child’s growth through life is priceless to observe. When it is your own kid, it is the closest thing to Heaven I know of.

This Daddy is ready if another first day of school ever rolls around. Are you?

Based in Greensboro, Rodney Southern has been writing and editing sports and nature articles for going on 10 years. His articles have appeared in “Nicean” magazine, “The Sporting News” website and countless other online venues. Southern was the 2008 Ultimate Call for Content National Award Winner. He attended Guilford Tech and was trained as an EMT in the Army. He now spends his life chasing his two twin daughters and loving his incredible wife while chasing the book in his head. You can read his humorous posts on family life and parenting at RodneySouthern.com.