Dad of a Five-Year-Old

The life of a father to a five-year-old little diva is a lot more complex than you’d imagine, and I assume it’s only going to get more interesting. From the moment you first see your daughter being born, you just know she going to be daddy’s sweet little angel forever. This eventually fades and life comes quickly to burst your little bubble. The sweet, innocent, and loving phase last about as long as the flavor in chewing gum.

At first, you barely notice the differences. She’ll go from running up to you when you get home all excited, which then turns into a quick walk and eventually a loud yell from her room, where her face is stuck in a phone or tablet watching YouTube. She goes from wanting to go everywhere with you to maybe, if she thinks it'll be fun or you're going to buy her something. With that thought, you slowly begin to realize that you've changed as well. As a dad you go from no one can tell her what to do or hurt her little feelings to “if you don't start paying attention, child” being your new catch phrase. You go from the one she always runs to because daddy won't get onto me to “ugh, I'm going to my bedroom,” or “you're mean, mommy's my favorite.”

All of this, in my opinion, is completely fine, especially since in my mind I'm supposed to be her parent first, and friend second. So the better I equip her for the outside world, the better—and, thus, I'll no longer be the fun one since someone always has to be the bad guy. For the first three years, I was always the good guy and my wife hated it. She constantly got onto me about letting her slide and get away with stuff, and how it wasn't fair she always had to discipline her. The role of the parent in most houses in 2018 has drastically changed from when I was born back in 1990. Back when I was growing up, parents thought it was a bad thing if their kids thought of them as friends at all. So to go from that to now parents getting offended and hurt if their kids don't see them as their friends is just beyond a problem. Before I go off on a tangent about all that and how it correlates to why there's so many crappy kids running around, let me get back on track.

Now this is the part of this story where I give the advice that I have gathered throughout these last five years of raising a daughter. First, don't beat yourself up over being the bad guy, because without the bad guy those hard real life lessons go untaught. Second, please try to refrain from being your child's friend before being her father. Your little girl will grow up to have more than enough friends but she only gets one dad, so make sure you're being that. Last but most definitely not least, remind her constantly that just because you have to be tough on her sometimes, it never means that you don't love her or that you love her any less. I'm not a big fan of emotions or emotional situations, but your kid needs to know that your proud of them just as much as they need to know that your going to give them rules and structure.

Guys, trust me when I say that being a dad period is a task and a half, but add in being a dad to a little diva and you get a whole new adventure. It's the single most stressful, amazing, infuriating, and incredible thing you'll ever be and will ever do in your life. When everything is said and done, you just gotta do what you think is right, and it will put her on the right path and give her the equipment to handle anything that might come her way. You won't be perfect, but to her you'll hang the moon and stars—keep that in mind when it gets too stressful.