“Ninety-five percent of success in life is just showing up,” my dad has said. When my dad says things like this, I listen. In part I listen because he is a man of few words. Also, when he does speak, it is with the twang and quiet coolness of John Wayne and Burt Reynolds––a combination that always makes me feel like I should be taking notes. I listen because he is usually right. I mostly listen for the sole reason that he is my father.
Kids listen to their fathers, even if the only reason they are listening is to remain in a state of opposition with dear old dad. Even if dear old dad is the absent sort, they are listening.
And being listened to is just one part of the sweet deal that father’s acquire along with instant rock star status. The thing about fatherhood is that (for just a one time payment of DNA and nine monthly installments of foot rubs or ice cream runs) fatherhood can take an average guy out of the crowd and put him up on stage––front and center––of a child’s universe.
Unlike motherhood.
If fatherhood propels one to instant rock star status, then motherhood propels one to instant back up dancer status––at best. In fact, a more accurate title would probably be assistant to the assistant who retrieves coffee for the back up dancer. The point being, the real fame and stardom lies with dad.
For me, I am learning that motherhood means I will spend 6, 437 hours driving to and from baseball practice and dance lessons only to have my parenting record brandished with condemning statements like, “My mom is ALWAYS late.”
Fatherhood means that my husband will show up to cheer for the last play of the game, and ten years later have our son dedicate his Heisman to him, because after all, “Dad was ALWAYS there.”
Motherhood means that every day for the past two weeks I have loaded up my children, swimsuits, towels, and paperwork detailing each and every morsel of food to pass their lips and every substance to exit their bowels and I have driven them to (intensive) swimming lessons––swimming lessons that will save their lives. I have stood at the side of the pool in a sweaty chlorine stupor, as they scream in hysterics, clawing at the water with the swimming proficiency of a brick, spitting, sputtering and gagging over the unjust torture I have inflicted upon them. I am a horrible mother, after all, because I don’t want my children to drown.
Fatherhood means that my husband will show up after two weeks of swimming lessons and comment, “wow, it’s so fun to see how much they enjoy the water,” as they glide––smiling––through the water like adorable little euphoric dolphin children always glancing immediately to his face looking and listening for his praise. Fatherhood means that he will take them out for ice cream to celebrate their swimming success and their potential as the next Michael Phelps’s, while I am left with the comfort of my ice cream and knowledge that my children won’t drown.
Motherhood means that (like my mother) I will spend my eighth month of pregnancy running up and down the block in the heat of the Summer pushing a five year-old’s pink, two-wheeler banana seat so that she is not “the only one in the whole entire kindergarten class still using training wheels!”
Fatherhood means that (like my father) my husband will be the one who gives that one fateful push that sends our pony-tailed five year-old riding off independently into the sunset on her two-wheeled banana seat. And because he is her father and he was the one who gave the pivotal push, she will forever herald him in illustrations and memories as “my dad, the one who taught me how to ride a two wheeler.” And her journal entry will read something like “obviously it wasn’t my mother who taught me how to ride a bike, because she is ALWAYS late.”
However, you can’t really blame children for misinterpreting the truth, because, they are after all, just kids. And really, the general public is just as to blame for propagating the star father frenzy.
For example, on the rare occasion that I take my children to a restaurant on my own (and subsequently commandeer all of the available high chairs and booster seats), I draw the same attention that a four car pile up on the side of the road receives from passerby’s––curiosity, pity and quiet prayers thanking God “that isn’t me.”
On the rare occasion that my husband takes the children to Cracker Barrel on his own (and subsequently commandeers all of the available high chairs and booster seats), he is greeted with a standing ovation. And free pancakes. He’s even been known to sign an autograph or two. In fact, word spreads like wild fire that there is father present in the building, and newsflash: he is eating breakfast with his kids. The press is called and fellow patrons shake his hand and snap pictures on their cell phones like the paparazzi.
In any other situation, there is a very strong likelihood that my competitive nature would get the best of me and I would resent the disparity in parenting superstardom.
But motherhood also means that I get a wonderful view as I watch my children suppress their fear and draw a tremendous amount of courage to do things they didn’t know they were capable of, in order to make their father proud. Whether it’s swimming in the deep end or riding a two-wheeler my children will conquer these things only because they care that he is watching. I’ve come to accept that it’s just the nature of his relationship with them. It’s what fatherhood means.
It’s the nature of the relationship I have with my own father. My dad has always said that ninety-five percent of success in life is just showing up. I’ve thought about these words over the years in situations like the taking SAT’s, my wedding day, and giving birth––situations that terrified me and for which I felt completely unprepared. But I show up for these life events because I will do extraordinary things in order to make my father proud.
My dad is right, especially if you apply his wisdom to fatherhood, because ninety-five percent of my husband’s success means that all he has to do is show up.
And I am learning that the other five percent means that I am the woman who tells him what time to get there.
