It was supposed to be just another weekly Stay-At-Home Dad’s Day, but cheer practice changed those expectations. Instead, my dad’s role became more clear.
My job has allowed me the flexibility to stay at home while my wife works once a week as a nurse in the hospital. Typically these days are all about survival. With my wife being a nurse, she is gone for 13–14 hours the days she works. Surviving is the best word to describe this once a week-long day.
But this particular week and unique day was different.
A Cheer Dad
Fayth has been cheering on a special needs team for the past few months. The team consists of two 6-year-old girls with autism and Fayth, our 4-year-old with Down syndrome. Since these girls are still young, the moms help the girls in their routines.
Every week the girls and moms practice. Personally, I have only been to two other practices until this special day.
Stephanie, my wife, ended up having to work on the day of Fayth’s cheer practice. It was awkward from the beginning. I had to take Stephanie’s place in helping Fayth cheer. I didn’t know the motions. I didn’t know the routine. I barely knew the song. Outside of watching all of Fayth’s competition, I still didn’t know what to do.
I HAD TO BE MOMMY.
The music started and the other two moms went to work. Arms were swinging, legs kicking, and girls jumping, but not Fayth. Why? Because I didn’t know what I was doing.
It was so awkward. My man-esteem was shot. I could imagine my college buddies walking in and laughing saying, “Dude Buck, what are you doing?” Yes, I was “that” dad. The “awkward-for-everyone-watching” dad.
I just wanted to leave. But I stuck it out. I just kept thinking, “Poor Fayth. She gets embarrassing dad for practice.”
I left with our kids from practice that day with a new perspective, a revelation you might say. I AM NOT MOM!
Finding Dad’s Role With Special Needs
I understand my role is different from my wife’s, but sometimes I feel like the odd man out. Stephanie is the parent taking Fayth to school, therapy, doctor’s appointments, and cheer practice. I am able to attend some of these events, but not all. I do my best.
I occasionally feel lost in my identity of being a special needs parent. I look at all Stephanie does and I am inferior. I want to be there for everything, but I can’t be. I want to be the dad God has called me to be, but I just feel as though I can’t hold a candle to Stephanie.
So what’s my role? What is a dad’s role with special needs?
Through this identity crisis, God has shown me a better way. Simply put, I AM NOT MOM. God has gifted me in different ways than a mom, but there is a trap, a trick.
PARENTAL COMPARISON.
Stephanie and I are team. We do not parent against each other, but together. God has gifted Stephanie in different ways and me in different ways. God has blessed our two kids with two different parents working together for greatness.
However, the greatness is swept away when comparison creeps into the picture of parenting.
So what is my goal now? To be Dad. Be the best dad I can possibly be. Be the dad God has created and designed me to be. I strive to love, care, protect, provide, challenge, and lead.
I am not Mom, nor should I strive to be. Fayth will have her best dad when I operate in my role and not Mommy’s role.
For dads being their kids’ best dad.
Jared Buckley
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Thank you for posting this. Great reminder to stay focused and work as a team. Its been a 11 year journey with our son Matthew so far. At first I think its a survival of the fittest mentality when your in the crisis mode and the newness of it all. Our humanness takes over and we learn what our roles are in this all. Working as a team in the beginning was a foreign concept for both of us. But like marriage you have to learn the steps in the process. Allowing mistakes and achievements. One parent can never fulfill the others . Mom cannot be Dad and Dad cannot be Mom. God did not plan it that way. Through the journey to we had to learn that if Moms not around and Dad steps up that Mom cannot expect Dad to do it her way. Hard lesson. We are a team. Not just with each other but with God. I imagine a threefold cord just as our relationship should be in marriage as I do in this walk with our child. God being in the center and us entwined with Him wrapped around Matthew. If we separate and try to lead on our own it usually becomes a roadblock. But if we pray no matter the circumstance good or bad we stay together. We work together. Our situation is not solved but more easily maneuvered. Does that make sense.
We also learned it does no one any good to compare. One is not holier then the other. One is not better because they do more. We all work in this together. When it works Matthew’s life is more calm and things just work. Jared I am so glad you wrote this and that others write with a Dad perspective. It helps us as moms to understand what our spouses might be going through in all this. They matter to and not to be pushed aside as sometimes we do when we wrap ourselves into our child’s journey. I know my husband appreciates these as well knowing he is not alone in this. So thanks .
Awesome post, Jared! The spirit of comparison definitely needs to be cast out of ALL of our lives! And I love your take on Mom and Dad working as partners. It took me and my husband awhile to work this out, and some counseling along the way (along with lots of prayer!) but once we figured it out we were an A+ team! (our son is now 29, and we are STILL finding our individual roles as parents of an adult son with autism!)
Thank you Kathy. I am glad you enjoyed the post. Partnership in parenting is difficult at times, but when it works, it REALLY works!