I loved my Dad. You can’t convince me that he wasn’t an absolutely amazing man. Although as I’ve gotten older I’ve had many challenge and question his parenting. Dad ruled with the proverbial “Iron Fist”. I learned really quickly that I didn’t want his leather belt. It only took me a few of those spankings to NOT misbehave. He was also a strong and loud man and if he said something, that was the LAW, not just the rule. So when I was two minutes late for my very first curfew he was waiting at the front door and it was clear I would never be late for curfew again. And I wasn’t. Dad died at 52, the day after my 27th birthday. My two older kids were 4 and 1 at the time. I had a lot of parenting questions that I never got to ask. Something tells me Dad would say that he wishes he could re-do a lot of things but not having him around to help me be a dad myself, I started my parenting journey trying to model what I learned from my Dad.
My kids got my very best attempt at the Iron Fist model. Except I really didn’t like spanking my kids. It didn’t feel right. I even got to a point where I would sit on the bed and pray with them after spanking them (like that would make them like me after their punishment). Carter (my middle child got the worst of this and I’m sorry Son.) What I was good at was being STRONG and LOUD like my dad, and making sure they knew NOT to challenge me. This led my three kids to most likely fall in line but I think also to “fear me” and “resent me” which isn’t what I was actually trying to accomplish.
All three of my children (Lexi, Carter and Dane) would tell you that their lives got immensely better in 2019 when I met my wife Angie. Our parenting styles could NOT have been more different. “Iron Fist” was NOT in her vocabulary. She taught me that each child is different and I needed to parent them differently (That was a lightbulb moment for sure). Angie liked to give kids choices and let them learn thru mistakes, a concept that made zero sense to me and sometimes I still have a hard time getting behind. But, I also saw that her kids really loved their mom and not because she had “scared” that love into them. So I started to try and blend the two styles of parenting. Why blend you might be thinking? Because science tells us that our kids brains aren’t fully developed until they are 27-28 years old and they are put into our care until 18 because sometimes they aren’t capable of making the correct choice. That’s where I think the genius of blending comes in. I think we need to give the kids choices but make sure they know if they’ve made the wrong one (and that means sometimes stopping them before they proceed). It means that I’m still loud enough with my dad voice that kids know the old saying, “As long as you live in this house, I’m still calling the overall shots”. (My kids and wife may not 100% agree LOL). We are still their parents and sometimes have to act like it even when they don’t like that as teenagers.
Keep in mind we are constantly learning to parent and me blending the two models still wasn’t quite working. So I continuously thought about how to be a better dad and in that process I thought about what I wish my Dad had done differently. The thing I wanted from him was to tell me he loved me and that he was proud of me. So over this period, beginning in 2019 until now, I’ve made a concerted effort to let me kids know how much they mean to me. And that goes for my bonus kids, Hallie, Chace and Sommer too. But it was on a walk with my friend David in the summer of 2024 where he said something so profound that has completely changed my parenting philosophy again. David said, “We spend so much time trying to control our kids when we should be chasing after their hearts the way Jesus chases after ours.” My mind was immediately blown, my eyes were immediately opened and my heart knew that I needed to pursue my kids and lead them to Heaven the way Jesus pursues my heart.
That conversation has completely changed the way I parent yet again. I still try to blend mine and Angie’s parenting style BUT, now I’m trying to parent more like God parents Me. Yes God punishes for our good when we need it. But HE pursues me and you when we don’t know what we are doing. He doesn’t get angry at us when we fail. He tries harder to meet us and keep us on the path to Him. I would like to think that’s given me a little more Patience, a lot more Grace and more Love to give my kids. Parenting is SO HARD. Especially in a blended family (I’ll eventually write another blog on this) but our job is to get our kids to know Jesus so we can all be together in Heaven.
And I know that I’m not done learning on this journey and you probably have questions too. So when you’re ready, reach out and let’s take a walk and learn together.
May God Bless You Today and Always,
Aric