30 Days of Dads: Daniel Pelfrey of 'Post Post Modern Dad'

Whenever I complain online about something, Daniel Pelfrey pokes his head in to remind me it could be worse: I could be a Seattle Mariners fan. A father of four boys and one girl -- ages 2 to 20, Daniel writes the Post Post Modern Dad blog when not fighting perpetual exhaustion from all that child wrangling. He's a guy with "one foot in the past, one foot in the future, and one foot on the accelerator" and an obvious problem with math and/or biology. Enjoy. -- Kevin 

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There’s a line by the late comedian Bill Hicks where he talks about how parents tend to exaggerate the accomplishments of their children: “He’s not special; he’s just your kid.”

I love that line.

Perspective. It’s something we need as parents, especially today as there are more activities to occupy our children’s days. Between ballet, gymnastics, baseball, underwater nuclear physics, swim lessons, chess club and whatever else we have our kids enrolled in, it can be easy to lose perspective. Our culture has gotten to this point where over-achieving is the norm, and now every kid has to be exceptional.

Thankfully I don’t have a swelled head about what my kids are capable of. Hey, I love my kids as much as the next person (well, all right, a little bit more because they are MY kids) but I’ve learned a long time ago to be realistic.

Let me tell you a story.

Once when my oldest son Kyle was in second grade I came to pick him up from school at the end of the day. The teacher asked me to stay after with Kyle, another student, and that student’s father. Apparently Kyle had turned around during class and used his scissors to take a snip out of this other student’s hair. It wasn’t a large chunk, but it was noticeable. It wasn’t malicious or done in a way meant to threaten or harm, it just … was.

When asked about the incident, Kyle readily confessed, which was as expected since the incident had clearly taken place and the teacher had seen it occur. Kyle needed to apologize to this other student and the student’s father. I was asked if I had anything to say. “Well, I’d like to say that my son would never do something like this, but I can’t because he obviously already did. I’d like to say that it will never happen again, but I can’t. I can, however, apologize to you and guarantee that if it does, Kyle will get in trouble. Big time.”

Did I ever in my wildest dreams expect my son to take scissors to another kid? No. Was I surprised? You bet. To this day we laugh about it because this is the sort of ridiculous stuff that happens when you’re a parent. You may think your child is all sweetness and light, but something can come along out of nowhere to ground you in the reality that he’s not special, he’s just your kid.