A man crashes the party is a good description of how I feel some days. I am a father who has a remote office and that means it is not unusual for me to take the kids to school and to pick them up.
I show up at school events during the day and sometimes I am the only dad. It doesn’t happen real often, but I am often out numbered by the moms.
Sometimes they are friendly and warm, but there are moments where I am the outsider. I am the stranger. I wasn’t pregnant. I don’t have pregnancy tales to tell.
Mine are different. Mine are about fears of being stuck on the freeway when my wife went into labor or other tales that fathers tell and that is ok.
Today I went to a Halloween carnival at my daughter’s school and smiled as I watched her run towards me. There were lots of fathers there, but not nearly as many moms. We try hard to be involved and to be different from our dads, that is not to say they were bad.
Our dads had different times to deal with and now is our time.
Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like if my dad could have been to more of my stuff. He was always around and he hit the bigger things, but I never saw him in the classroom like I get to go.
One day I may be at a different job and not able to do this anymore. I’ll miss it.
This is was part of 5 Minutes Friday. Details found here.