The other day I brought home some plumbing parts and left
them on the counter. After dinner, my four-year-old son decided to put the two
pieces of PVC together and pound them on the ground, wedging the much needed
parts together. I scolded him, snatched the pieces, and went into the garage to
try to pull them apart, leaving my son weeping. I was so irritated, but my
frustration was more at the plumbing situation and not so much at my son.
You see, this plumbing issue has been ongoing. Before we got
the house, some knucklehead installed a sprinkler system that includes seven
sprinkler valves all stacked up on top of each other in an eight inch strip of
dirt, with the house on one side and the driveway on the other. One line has
broken numerous times, and each attempt at a fix is filled with frustration,
scraped knuckles, and usually
only a couple of weeks of functioning irrigation
before the line slips. Professionals have looked at the setup and cringed. I
finally had a plan, the fifth or sixth that I was sure would work, and my
four-year-old wedged my hopes between those two pieces of PVC.
But as I was in the garage pulling the pieces apart, I realized
that my son didn’t set out to sabotage my repair. He was using his developing
engineering skills to put two similar looking objects together the way that
made sense to him. He wasn’t trying to stop me; he wanted to help me.
So I did the unthinkable. Throwing his bedtime routine into
the wind, I asked little E if he wanted to help daddy fix the irrigation. So
the two of us went out. He helped me dig and cut the PVC. I showed him how to
fit the pieces together and then clean, prime, and glue the pieces. In 20
minutes, we had our repair drying, waiting to see how we did. But more
importantly, we had some great time together, and my son learned a thing or two
about PVC repair.
Being a Renaissance Dad isn’t about getting things right
every time. It’s not about never losing my cool. And it is certainly not about
getting every repair right the first time. Or second time. Or third time. It’s
about recognizing mistakes, apologizing, and trying again. And again. And
again. It’s about not giving up, even when others are cringing.
By the way, the plumbing repair was a success, and you
should have seen little E’s smile when I told him that we got it right!
This post reminded me of a time [mid 60's] when my dad was working on cutting a window opening out of a piece of laminate-type material. The window was not centered so the placement of the cut was important.
ReplyDeleteMy brothers and sister were watching, talking and joking with each other. As my dad picked the piece up and put it up to the wall, he found that he had did the cut on the wrong side of the piece rendering the piece of laminate useless. He was really mad at us: telling us he now had to go spend another $8 on a new piece and stormed out the door.
I felt really bad so I went into my bank and pulled out $3 [all the money I had]. My sister did the same when she saw me do it.
My dad came back with the new piece. I gave the money to my dad and my sister and I apologized for distracting him. We then went into our room to leave him alone to do the work.
A moment later, my dad came into our room, hugged us, gave our money back, and HE apologized for taking his frustration out on us. He then took us out to show us how important it was to get the right placement on the sheet of laminate. As special moment I have never forgotten. --- DT Bauer