You and I are different. I had my dad for about five years. After that, I had people who would tell me what he used to say and that it was wise saying.
Some examples are...
I treasure every little bit I know about my father because I don't know that much about him.
You, on the other hand, had to deal with only seeing your dad on the weekends. I always gave you guys priority and rarely scheduled any meetings or even lunches with anyone while you guys were in my care. I wanted to give you all the time I had on the weekends.
I opened your little skulls and poured in as much of my experience as I could. Both good and bad, successes and mistakes.
I told you how I would go out in the middle of the night because my mother was working full-time night shift and I could.
I told you how I pulled on the door handles of many of the cars in the neighborhood and a lot of them had the keys in the ignition. I was 12 and I was already doing oil changes on my mother's car, so I knew how they worked and what all the controls did. For that reason, I should be able to drive them.
All that is the logic of a 12 year old who just happened to know how to take apart cars and put them back together. You chose to copy that one. And because you told me about it before I found out about it, there was no punishment. That was our deal!
You weren't 12 years old, but you were of age to drive. You were missing my permission.
Another way that we are different is that when I was a kid, I did not have anyone to show me how to do things. So I looked for people who knew how to do things and I asked a lot of questions.
You had me to ask and whenever we did a project, I would always tell you the best way to do it because I had already done the job 16 other ways that didn't work or didn't work well.
Still, I don't know how you did it, but you would find one of those other 16 ways that you wanted to try. At times I would talk you out of it and have you do it my way. But as you got bigger you didn't want to listen. I let you do the job using your 'new' method, which was really an old iffy one.
Then, after we went out to get another new innertube, or whatever the part was that broke, I would explain to you that I had already made that mistake 30 years ago. You would say, "But it almost worked Dad."
The way that you push back when we have these difficulties has gotten more aggressive over the last few years. It is as if your main goal is to exercise your right to learn the hard way. It is as if you don't believe that I messed up 16 times before finding the best way. Or maybe you don't believe me when I tell you my way is the best way. The truth is, I either learned it from someone who gave me a tip or I learned it the costly way by injuring myself or buying lots of parts that didn't need to be bought.
The school of hard knocks does fit one of my dad's sayings. Where as long as you learn something it's okay. But it can also be costly.
There is no benefit to you if you choose to repeat all my mistakes. There is, however, a benefit when your father is an ace mechanic, financial whiz, the hell of a good programmer, a decent musician, cook, etc., and he can give you a leg up.
Trustworthy advice is the one thing you can get from your father. You don't seem to value it. You used to, but now that you are breaking into your third decade of life, the counter-productive, "I don't have to listen to what you say." stage of development, I feel less comfortable offering you advice. Sometimes you even yell at me, and most times you interrupt me in order to say you're not interested.
I really tried to accept the fact that you do not want my input. But I was just doing what the Bible says, which is to treat others as you would have them treat you.
Every time I tried to help you or give you advice, that is exactly what I would want from my father if I were in your situation.
I also tried to explain the following when we weren't working on anything
I was telling youthe manner in which I would approach a new task. If I'm an expert at that task, then I would just simply do it. If I had never done that kind of task before, I would see if there is anyone around who has, and I would ask, "Are there any tricks or pitfalls to getting one of these jobs done?" The better you know the person, the more valuable their response will be. Fathers will be among the best sources for advice.
My children continually pull up a YouTube video and show me the person that they are going to trust for information on hard to do this with that job. The people on YouTube are only interested in keeping your attention long enough for you to see one of their ads. All of them, if they have their way.
All of that said, I'm not an expert in everything. I don't expect myself to be one, and my self-esteem does not drop even one little bit when I think about that.
Let's reverse rolls
I did play some games with my kids. That is the world in whichw they have spent the most hours of their lives. When I would start playing a game, the kids would show me the ropes. They would give me advice and I would immediately take it because they're the ones who are experts in that game. I knew that listening to them would help me avoid pitfalls, mistakes, and that the learning of it would be much quicker.
If by chance I being more experienced on a certain game than they had, they would choose not to listen to any tricks or tips that I had found. And instead, they would stop playing the game and move to another one.
Efficiency.
I used to get paid "booktime" for jobs I had done on people's cars. If booktime was eight hours and I could get it done in four, that was a big win for me. So I have learned how to be efficient.
It might have taken me 10 hours the first time I did one of those specific jobs, but as I did more of them, I got better at it. I learned new tips and tricks to save time. I also learned others that would make the quality of my work much better.
I jump at the opportunity to pick someone's brain if they have a lot of experience in something that I'm about to undertake.
If I know nothing about a topic and someone asks me about it, I tell them that they're asking the wrong person.
The above is all I've ever expected of my kids. They could watch me apply all of this in real life. They have seen that I am actually practicing what I preach.
Lastly, I will still take advice on something that I am an expert in, and I will consider it if it has merit, and I have never tried it before. But I will always weigh their suggestion against my experience.
The hardest thing for me is when you ignore my advice and I see the coming consequence. I even name the consequence as a risk. When it happens, then you blame me as if I wished it on you.
Mistakes are not the way to get an education. They are not the objective. You should gather information from the most trustworthy sources that you have around you and then attempt to do a job. If you make a mistake, chalk it up to education. It's okay.
When one day you finally read this you're welcome to mark all the places where you would have cut me off and interrupted me to say how you don't agree. I said all of this to you in person while tolerating those interruptions. Now I'm writing all of it without them.
It's all for your own good.
Love Dad
