Dad’s weak-ass advice

I came across this piece in the Star-Ledger that on a brighter day would’ve perhaps added some sunshine to my step. But on this particular day, it made me want to castrate wallabies.

It’s a guest column, I suppose, from a “career coach” (let’s just piss on the grave of journalism a bit more, thought the editors).  In it, the author thanks his father for his bounteous good advice.

Lovely.

Except that the advice starts with “disagree without being disagreeable” and continues with “give the gift of belief”. Actually, all the advice is like that: the kind of bland slogans you’d see on a corporate inspiration poster.

Now, I’m not saying that everyone has to be an asshole. I am a mixed-breed myself, part showman (on my father’s side) part theologian (on my mother’s side). And I dare say that the fuzzy, huggy ministers in my mother’s family have never been disagreeable while disagreeing.

But could we get advice with a little more pop from this dude’s dad? Something a little more… fierce?

Life is not a Hallmark card. Telling your child to Play Nice can’t be the only lesson, can it? I bet that if the author of this piece, if he would stop being so incredibly fucking warm and bubbly for a second, would find that his father taught him other lessons that were far more valuable. When to control your anger, when to give into it. How to hold a marriage together when even the thickest bonds have been busted by the arrival of a baby. How often it’s OK to go out smoking and drinking with your buddies while your family waits at home. How to respond to being laid off. These are the things our mentors should teach us.

But these (all-too-common) tropes about the bland encouragements of Everydad are not just unrealistic. They’re hurtful to the rest of us fathers who are actually raising kids in reality. Our cause won’t be served by those plastic platitudes. And any father who has struggled is diminished by this sort of soggy bread served by newspapers. Acknowledge the difficulties, find help for those who need it. But don’t smarm and tell me the most remarkable thing you father taught you was to be nice to people you meet.