This week, my daughter turned 5 years old, marking 261 weeks of being her dad. This milestone is significant for her, as well as for my wife and me, representing five years of raising another human being.
It has not been an easy ride, the constant juggle of wanting to do the best for my family and then wanting to do the things that I want and interest me has been a pretty tough battle that I’ve struggled with and something I always will.
Below are 5 key lessons I have learned.
Sleep deprivation sucks!
I become a real cranky person when I get bad sleep or interrupted sleep. And despite my best efforts, mostly everyone finds out that I’ve had a bad sleep because I’m incredibly short tempered and irritable.
I track my sleep and have a pretty good sleep hygiene and I’m fascinated in how the smallest things can have a huge impact on what I feel like when I wake up. The sleep interruptions from my daughter have been constant her whole life, with her still waking up regularly in the night.
I spent 18 months waking up each night, pulling a mattress out and sleeping on the floor in her bedroom when my equally poor sleeping son was born.
The one thing I have found that has the most detrimental impact on my sleep is alcohol.
The best thing I have found is evening meditation and a cold bedroom.
2. Expectations
I’ve not been the best at dealing with strong feeling and emotions from my very passionate, now 5 year old.
When I get overwhelmed with other people’s emotions and my own, I turn into a bit of a robot and go full engineer mode, not being able to understand the bizarre emotions and intangible reasons why a child may not want to eat the Vegemite on toast they asked for.
It’s the same with my wife, I sometimes cannot think outside of the box and when there isn’t a clear link or explanation for something, I become increasingly impatient and can be difficult to deal with.
I have found myself putting the high standards I have of myself on both my daughter and son. This is something that I have to keep pulling myself up on and definitely isn’t a value I want to instil in either of them.
3. I’m not that adaptable
Internally I pride myself on my ability to adapt to change, but then I get thrown a curveball or a child is sick and I’m unable to do the activity I wanted to.
This is yet another thing that I’ve now realised, I’m not as good at as I thought. I have formed some pretty rigid habits at the beginning and end of each day which I’m focussed on achieving to give me a sense of accomplishment early in the day, structure my brain and allow me to bring my best to the time between those routines.
Often my kids do not appreciate that I wake up at 5am only to kick start my daily routines so I can bring my best self to the day.
4. Patience, the virtue I don’t have
I’ve written before about my complete lack of patience. Sometimes it’s due to having to spend 20 minutes to get out of the house with two kids, knowing that I could be up and out the house in less than 30 seconds if I wanted.
Other times it’s the fact that I cannot seize an opportunity to travel interstate to a weightlifting competition, deliver some training for a different company or dive into some further study at university.
I’ve learnt a bit along the way about picking my battles and choosing the things that are non-negotiable and letting go of the things that aren’t so important right now.
5. Growth
Just as my daughter has done over these last 5 years, I too have grown considerably. Just as she fell over and had to pick herself back up whilst learning to walk, I too have fallen down and have picked myself up. Learning from my mistakes and being slightly less worse the next time around.
As my daughter now learns to write, I am learning to pick my responses to her emotions much better. My responses are still not 100%, just like her letters, but each time we practice they get better.
What I have learnt from this last 5 years of being a father is that I have an incredible life and opportunity to give my kids an equally incredible life. But I still have not figured out what the point of “enough” is.
In summary, these five years have taught me about the importance of patience, adaptability, and the need to balance personal expectations with family life. As I continue this journey, figuring out what constitutes “enough” will be crucial for finding fulfillment and maintaining balance.
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