Becoming My Father

As my first blog post, this seems like a very organic place to start since it is the transition from young, carefree, troublesome teenager that I once was, to becoming the grumpy, (pushing 40) husband, father and general cantankerous man that I am today, that has led me to this realisation that I have slowly become my Father and now in need of a vehicle to blow of some steam and rant. I must also add it’s also to save my Wife from leaving me, as she currently bears the brunt of most of my ranting, as do my mates on WhatsApp groups, often greeted with long messages, which finish with “read more”, as they’re too long even by WhatsApp standards.

Before I unpack this story, I must note that for all the grumpiness, mood swings, worry and stress, my Dad is my hero and I certainly will do well in life if I can be as reliable, thoughtful and an outright provider like him. There is never a time I can’t call my dad from the other side of the world. He is always there for me and has his own great stories about me, but they’re for another day!

So onto the current day and in the past week or so I’ve been venting about inflation, Ukraine, cost of living, all that fun stuff. I spend the week venting at my Wife and Saturday morning dog walks relaying the same to my dad over the phone…passerby’s must think I’m preaching to nobody, as it’s not always clear I’m on the phone with a hat covering my ear buds and phone inside my pocket.

I think I started this transition around my late 20s, early 30s, when it seemed out of nowhere I’d started to get annoyed by things both within and outside my control. My dad would say I’ve always been angry; “The Angry Young Man” he use to call me and my mum has always said “you’re just like your Father”, for as long as I can remember. I recall early rants would be generally about people who I knew or worked with. Just people who’d ended up in my circle or proximity somehow who weren’t welcome (by me) but I’d have to endure because “they’re really funny”, or “great with the birds”, or as one of my mates puts it “harmless”. Like that’s a bloody reason to hang around with someone…

Somewhere along the line this anger towards people evolved and took on a broader scope; Soon it was political situations, then Wars, until it was anything and everything, which would p*** me off, which is virtually anything and everything. It all started to feel familiar, with memories of my Dad constantly watching the news, having moments of anger and coming home from work slagging off work colleagues or Clients who’d got right up his nose that day. As a Financial Planning Manager (back in the day - pre internet for a large part), process was more manual, more paperwork and no online banking at this stage. I recall joining my Dad sometimes when he had to visit peoples houses to collect money for savings, loans, etc. Once I recall my Dad coming out of a house fuming (as I waited in the car), “the bloody sod, he owes Money and claims not to have it right away, he’s spent it on beer probably! I’ll be reporting him.” Side note my dad was by no means a loan shark who went in heavy in the evenings threatening people - It was all above board, but given he worked every hour God sent, wasting his evenings listening to liars had justified cause for frustration.

I also recall his first ‘ECB’ (I assume it stood for Electronic C B******!) sort of like an early day laptop, designed specifically to digitally input data rather than manually hand write forms for Customers. It was a heavy ugly thing in metal casing, which was ideal given the amount of times my dad threw it. One Sunday afternoon the radiator copped for it as metal ECB met iron radiator…the bloody ECB was unscathed and continued to pulsate my Dads ears with its “fatal error” tone…yes, fatal apparently. My dad had good form for throwing things, once a black mark appeared on the landing wall, “he threw his shoes at the wall earlier”, my mum confessed.

These are all traits I’ve taken on, often throwing fits during DIY, in the garage when doing chores in there, or when cleaning the house and finding myself in a tight spot (more on my obsessive cleaning in another blog). I often have these tantrums, and like a little boy, my Wife simply ignores me and leaves me to it. It’s a strategy my Mum has executed well with my Dad for years…leave him to it, eventually they will reset, then come and moan about it to you, but don’t poke the bear in mid-tantrum by speaking to them and getting in the crosshairs.

Oddly it’s not exclusive to anger, grumpiness or ranting where I take after my Father…words of wisdom, worry and security consciousness are also other traits I’ve taken adopted. I often find myself saying my dads phrases, “jobs to be done around this house”, “I’ll get my reward in heaven”, “let me go down to bottom of the garden and shake that tree for money”, and occasionally he’ll even offer up “I come from a long line of over-reactors”. He also has some wise mantras, one being, “I have 5 friends who have served me well in life, their names are who, what, when, where and how.” This was commonly used when me and my sister were coming of age and he’d want to know the full details and have a debrief after, “just you wait until you have kids of your own”, he’d say as he pushed for answers. As you got out of the car it’d be “have you got your keys, money, phone…”, “YESSSSS!!!!”

Being a Dad myself now, he’s not wrong.

My Wife will vouch for this, as I get anxious about everything, always assessing the threat level. Someone parks outside our house and I’m checking the door camera to see when it arrived and which house they went to. “He wants to **** off he does”, (another of my dads lines). Always checking doors are locked “there’s a security breach”, I tongue in cheek joke if a door’s left unlocked for a minute. Often when I awake in the night I will stick my head through the curtain to check for signs of activity, something my Dad also does when having a middle of the night bathroom break or can’t sleep, most likely due to worrying about something. I recall a story from when I must’ve been 7, 8 perhaps and I had a toy rifle, which was tidily stowed away on my dresser. One night, my Dad, hearing a noise got up to investigate and on passing my bedroom saw this toy rifle and thought to take it with him in case he happened to come across any disturbance. The rifle itself was bright green but perhaps his thinking was in the dark, the silhouette would suffice. Luckily, it was just the house creaking but had it not been I can imagine the outcome of the intruders…”oh, s***, we’ve only broken into the house of an underpanted SAS solider”.

As far as worrying goes, yes, it’s what us Dads do. In fact some days it seems it’s all we do. My Dad use to sport a 10-year long faint bruise on his forehead due to the constant rubbing of his knuckle on it, brought about by worry and stress. A man of the rat race, always rushing to get the month end targets in to get that bonus to enable us to get a summer holiday in, or pay for those new Nike trainers I had to have (to keep up with the “popular kids” at school), pay that catalogue bill my Mum ran up for clothes she’d never wear but just liked to own (my Mum has clothes in her wardrobe still with the price tags on) or pay for my sisters ever growing hair and makeup collection as she came ‘that age’, where boys were starting to lurk with my Dad always questioning their intentions…who, what, when, where, how…

Life didn’t always appear stressful as kids, we had a lovely house and my Dad usually had a company car, which often came with all the trimmings due to his success in meeting those targets. However, looking back it’s clear he was always worrying, anxious, just trying to provide for his family…’as that’s what men do, we are providers’. This is something I am going through right now with my own family; can I pay those bills, can I put food on the table, can we cope with the next wave of inflation? Occasionally, the ‘Bank of Dad’ has to swoop in to help his boy out and he does so willingly. I must add I have a long line of credit at this bank, which is repaid when I can with no interest.

As a Father myself now, I look to my own, as a guide of what’s required of Dads in the world and I’m already worrying about the times my Son will start to go out, party and generally land himself in mischief, just as I did on many many occasions. No matter how old I get, my Dad still worries about me. I was still getting the ‘Dad Taxi’ (another exclusive free service offered by the Bank of Dad to loyal Customers) well into my late 20s early 30s, only really calming down on the party scene once I met my now Wife. My Dad would always say “doesn’t matter what time it is or where you are, you call me, I’ll come and get you”, and at the time I would probably get annoyed with him, “I’m 29 FFS, I’ll sort myself out”, only getting to 4am, finding myself in some predicament with no money…

“Dad, can you come and get me…”,

“Sure, where are you?”,

“We’ve ended up at some house near the Blue Pyramid in Stockport”

“I’ll find you…just keep your phone on”…

…and he always did…somehow. My Mum often said he had natural homing device on me…whether collecting me from some house party, out of a fight, a nightclub, even during an arrest, he’d be there. He’d joke with my Mum the next day “you don’t have a clue what I go through anytime between 1 and 6am on Sunday mornings”, but more on those stories for another blog.

The point here is I already know this is how I’ll be with my Son. Currently 1-year old and sleeping in the next room (often being loud but still asleep), I will cherish those moments when he’s out in the town or at a house party doing god knows what, but I’ll have an idea, as I’ve been there myself. I will of course try to be cool but if it gets to 1am and he’s not answering my texts then I’ll be in that car driving the streets in pursuit of finding my boy and making sure he gets home safe, as my dad did with me. I will of course embarrass him, as I felt my dad embarrassed me, especially when my mates were around, but in fact my mates were always very impressed, “you’d never get my Dad out at this time, he doesn’t give a s***.” Often the car would have 3 lads in the back and another lay across as we crammed in, highjacking my dads radio to play rap music with our smelly kebabs. Those lifts home were the scenes of many fond memories, bants about the night, mick-taking between mates, but always the full respect to my Dad who just wanted to get his boy home safely but by extension got us all home safe and sound. Not one other Dad ever did this and I know full well I’ll do the same in the coming years.

To conclude it’s safe to say I have already become my Father - the full package. The moods, the rants, the sense of humour, the worry, the stress but all that aside, if I can become the man my Father is (providing for his family, being a great support and always coming through for me) then I will have succeeded in life.