I Want to be a Movie Dad

When my daughter was ten, she and I pulled off a pretty decent series of pranks involving hard dinner rolls.  We were at Disney World, of all places, and we ate at one of the “character dining” places at the castle.  Since she and I don’t care for bread that could be weaponized, we devised a plan to leave these sturdy but small balls of bread in unsuspecting places throughout Magic Kingdom.  So we loaded them up in napkins and smuggled them out in the backpack I wore all week.

If you’ve been to Magic Kingdom, you’re familiar with the strollers you can rent while there.  They have a wonderful little canopy on the top to keep the sun off the kiddies, but when an unknown parent turns slightly away from their stroller, the canopy makes for a nice spot to place a dinner roll.  Like a little dinner roll hammock.  When said parent turns back around, lookie there, a snack.

But we were just getting started.  I think we snuck about eight dinner rocks out of that restaurant.  In addition to the stroller canopy, we left one on the counter of the ice cream shop and I dropped one in a lady’s giant bag that was on the ground beside her.  I know there were a few more that I can’t remember, but that’s okay.  That just means they probably weren’t very good additions to the prank.  Failures improve us as people, even when we’re only looking to get better at pranking with dinner rolls.

The best one while we were at Magic Kingdom was this man we stalked all the way out of the park as we were leaving.  He wore a backpack and the two zippers that held the bag shut at the top were about four inches apart, leaving an opening into the main part of the backpack right at the top.  I was going to get that dinner roll in that backpack if it killed me.  My daughter had smiled and laughed so hard I wondered if she enjoyed dinner roll pranks more than Disney World (the answer was yes, she did; we still talk about this.)

So we followed this man for probably ten minutes, just waiting for him to get trapped and be forced to stop right in front of us.  It was a tough job as long as he was moving.  Had I tried to get it in there while walking, I surely would have pressed against the backpack unexpectedly and he would have felt the nudge and accused me of trying to steal from him and called the cops or something.  What I did not really consider until later was that there were hundreds of people behind me who could probably easily tell what I was trying to do.  It did not concern me even a little bit.  My daughter was euphoric.

It didn’t happen until we got to the Monorail waiting area.  The hordes of people finally had to stop.  I took the dinner roll, slowly separated the small opening at the top of his backpack, and simply dropped his bedtime snack right in the backpack.  It was really quite easy.  And it was REALLY quite easy to give my daughter a memory she has not forgotten and probably never will.  I can still see the sheer elation on her face when I finally got that dinner roll in his backpack.  And the dozens of people who watched me do it didn’t say a word.

We had only a couple more dinner rolls after that.  We saved them for the hotel.  I cannot begin to tell you how long we searched for the perfect spot to leave those last whole grain balls of steel, but I will NEVER forget it.  The first spot we settled on was the hostess stand at the hotel restaurant.  It was during dinner hours, too.  We didn’t eat dinner there, but we were walking around just checking things out, and when we noticed the hostess walking away from her little podium, we made our move.  

We stayed close enough that we could be considered to be just resting or mingling in the lobby, but we kept our eyes on that hostess station.  When she got back, she picked up the dinner roll from right on top of her podium and looked around with this, “What the hell is this and who put it here?” look on her face.  It was priceless.  MasterCard commercial priceless.

On our floor – I somehow recall it to be the eighth floor of the Best Western Downtown Disney – there was a fancy dresser just as we got off the elevator.  I have always wondered why hotels put dressers in the middle of the hallway, and yes, I have opened all the drawers at various hotels multiple times because I always wonder what they keep in there.  The only thing I’ve ever found in any drawer at any hotel in my life other than people’s trash was a Swiffer Duster, and that was this past summer in Utah.

Anyway, we decided to put the last dinner roll right on the top of the dresser for anyone who might need a quick carbohydrate-fueled pick-me-up on their way to or from their room.  It was boring, but we were kinda tired of looking for places to put them at that point anyway.  The best part about that last dinner roll was that it was still there throughout the entire next day.  Somebody finally disposed of it (or ate it) much later that evening.  It was awesome.  I recall my daughter being as excited to get back to the hotel to check on the dinner roll as she was the entire day at whatever park we played at all day.

And how is that for proving my point?  I remember the story of the dinner rolls, but I do NOT remember what park we went to the next day.  Crazy.

Can you envision that story as one of those feel-good, Full House kind of video montages with U2’s “Beautiful Day” playing over the sounds of our apparent gut-busting laughter and wall to wall smiles?  (I don’t even like U2, but all I could hear when I was writing this was Bono singing, “It’s a beautiful day….”  And now that’s all you’re singing, too, isn’t it?) 

Anyway, in the montage, there are clips of unsuspecting people finding their dinner rolls, some angry and throwing it to the ground, some irritated but flippant, some with a wry smile and a “What kind of knucklehead would do this” look on their face.  Near the end of the group of people who find dinner rolls, there’s an old man who shrugs and takes a bite, only to lose a denture on the granite-like crust of the roll.  It’s a make believe montage.  Why not an old man and dentures?

Inevitably, as the montage is coming to an end and Bono is reminding us not to let the day get away, our happy family bounds into the sunset laughing hysterically at our day.  The last clip is my daughter cleaning out our bag from the day and finding one last elusive dinner roll.  With near intoxicating joy, we take off out of the hotel room in search of our final victim.

I want to be a movie dad.  I want to create those kinds of video montages that will stay in my kids’ memories forever.  I want to give them the kind of childhood that will make THEM want to sit down and write one day so that their memories will never be forgotten.  And not only do I want to, I am.  I need to.  I have to.

One of the greatest things about sobriety is that I get to start over.  In a lot of ways, it’s a rebirth.  In a lot of ways, it’s a crippling mental struggle.  Depression, regret, and fighting those old feelings of doubt and reclusiveness can nearly overtake me mentally at times, but it’s still in many ways a rebirth.  Babies cry a lot, right?  So do newly sober addicts, even if the crying involves no actual tears.  Trying to forgive ourselves for ruining many, many years of our lives is tough to overcome.  It certainly doesn’t happen overnight.  

But I am starting to see glimpses of where I’m gaining strength in the areas of my life that had become either far less important than they should or, in some cases, damn near entombed by addiction.  I see how many missed opportunities I had with my thirteen year old daughter.  Even though I am learning to accept them, I will forever live with the regrets of that.

But I also get to grow as a man and realize the only thing I can do is make as many movie montages with her as I can now.  Not only that, I get a bit of a do over at fatherhood with my two year old son and whatever is currently cooking in mama’s oven (we like to be surprised.)  For them, I’m going to be a movie dad.  I even get to write, produce, film, and direct the movies now.  Totally sober.  That’s awesome. 

To be granted a second chance to be the type of father I have always dreamed of being is probably one of the most significant blessings of sobriety.  And in this case, I have to play the percentages.  Yes, I have a lot of years I would love to have back with my daughter.  I can’t have them back.  I know that.  But I get seventeen years with my son and a full life with another one once the new baby comes in January.  I can’t complain about or argue with those percentages.

But oddly enough, I struggle with exactly what type of dad I actually dream of being.  What kind of father am I when I am at my very best?  I truly do not know.  I’ve had so little experience.  I still think I suck at fatherhood more often than not.  So I had to search it out a little.  I wanted to know exactly who I want to be.  Who better to look at than fake dads.

My Favorite Movie / TV Dads

One of the first hurdles that must be eclipsed when discussing fictional characters is that they are, in fact, fictional characters.  They are nothing more than the product of a healthy working imagination. Their actions, their dialogue, even their facial expressions were originally nothing more that Times New Roman on a screenplay or script.  But I maintain that they are more than that for one main reason: as soon as they are cast, filmed, and the finished product released for all to see, their actions are believable, and anything that is believable is achievable.

Based on nothing more than that, my favorite things about my favorite movie/TV dads are no longer fictional.  I can actually achieve the most unique, humorous, virtuous, affectionate, fun, goofy, and sentimental characteristics of all my favorite characters and work towards implementing them into my own seemingly unknown fathering skills to see what sticks and what doesn’t.  

To refresh my memory but also to keep the memories organic and not tainted by how the interwebs describe different fatherly characters, I simply searched for lists of movies and television shows in each decade of my life.  I got my list of fathers pretty quickly. It’s amazing how the really memorable dads just stand out when you do nothing more than read the name of a movie or television show.  So with that in mind, here’s my favorite movie/TV dads (in no particular order other than mostly oldest to newest) and why I want to grow up to be just like them (and FYI, click on each name if you enjoy laughing):

• Andy Taylor – The Andy Griffith Show – Could there be a more honorable, ethical, and irreproachable man in the history of television?  I’m sure it happened, but I do not recall a single episode where Andy Taylor did anything shady.  And when he made a mistake, he corrected it immediately.  And he ALWAYS had the perfect script for summing up the lesson Opie (or Barney, in a lot of cases) should have learned in that episode.
• George Bailey – It’s a Wonderful Life – Somehow I have missed watching this the past two Christmas seasons, but I can still hear George Bailey’s voice, especially his exasperation in arguing with Potter or his confusion in his first meeting with Clarence.  He’s one of the most selfless men in movie history, having spent years helping the less fortunate through the Building and Loan he owns. And then he gets selfish. He thinks everybody would be better off without him and he’s forced to catch a glimpse of the world as if he never existed.  I think if we truly sat back and tried to unravel all the many ways we impact the people in our life, especially our children, we would impact them far differently.  But most of us would not wish we never existed.  We would just exist differently.  We would exist better.  That’s what George Bailey does.
• Atticus Finch – To Kill a Mockingbird – To me, the most profound characteristics of Atticus Finch were his unflinching resolve to live in equality with, as they say in the book, “people of color,” and also his abilities as a father to speak to Jem and Scout almost as if they were adult children, not preteen children.  He was probably not a very interesting or fun man socially, but he was so morally headstrong that Harper Lee almost forced you to admire him, even if his parenting ideals weren’t necessarily commonplace for the time. I actually remember very little about Atticus, the lawyer, other than his stance on equality.  I remember more about his fathering skills and how businesslike they were.  But I like that approach.  He was honest with his kids.  He didn’t try to protect them from the ugly truths of the world.
• Ray Kinsella – Field of Dreams – The man knew how to dream, didn’t he?  Just blind, stupid dreams because you only get to visit this place once.  But what if those dreams come true, you know?
• Heathcliff Huxtable – The Cosby Show – Yeah, yeah, I know.  I look at the clips now and wonder how he could even work with attractive women like Phylicia Rashad and Lisa Bonet without being too horny to act, but I guess he loosened up for each day’s taping by drugging unsuspecting women backstage.  So yes, I know he sucks and our image of him, sadly, can NEVER be restored.  But I used to love Cliff Huxtable.  He was one of the coolest, smoothest, most cocksure dads (and yes, the dual meaning worked perfect there) ever to grace the television screen.  He was the Danny Zuko of television dads.
• Daniel Hillard – Mrs. Doubtfire – I don’t recall the exact reasons why he and his wife divorced, but I know he was a child in a man’s body, and that is seldom easy for a wife.  I would imagine anyway. But that childishness makes him the coolest (yet goofiest) dad ever. He just wants to see his kids smile, no matter what.  That’s what I remember most about that character.  If his kids were smiling, he was happy.
• Clark Griswold – All of the Vacation movies – Probably my favorite movie character of all time.  He’s all about the memories he wants to make for his kids.  Who else would break into an amusement park or drive into the middle of nowhere with three feet of snow, only to bring home a Christmas tree that is literally twenty feet too tall for the living room?  Only Clark Griswold.  And his sarcasm is on point, too.
• Phil Dunphy – Modern Family – I kinda quit watching the show a couple of seasons ago when it should have ended (all sitcoms die; it’s the good ones that read their own eulogy,) but he was always my favorite character.  He is foolish and clumsy and dimwitted, but he tries SOOO hard to be the greatest dad ever and he tries SOOO hard to be his kids’ best friend.  His effort at fatherhood is just superb.  Not always something you need to imitate, but the effort is superb.
• Noah Levenstein – American Pie – What other father in television or movie history had such an amazing relationship with their son that they managed to make masturbation not seem all that embarrassing?  Plus, he calls it “pounding the old pud,” which makes absolutely no sense and it HAD to make Jim cringe, but in some crazy way, he’s actually being perfectly empathetic to his son simply because of the fearlessness (or ignorance) to attempt the conversation.  And then he buys his son nude magazines and explains them as if he’s trying to sell them to Jim.  Fabulous scene.  Empathetic and relatable yet totally clueless. 
• Peter Griffin – Family Guy – He sucks as a father.  Every character on the show sucks in their own special way.  And this is why I don’t think I have ever missed an episode.  So why is he on this list?  He hasn’t aged in twenty years.   Bastard.

So Do I Just Put All Those Guys Together or What?

That’s more of a rhetorical question to lead this section.  I don’t even know who the “I” in that question references.  Am I simply talking about me or am I suggesting other dads find their combination of “movie dad” to try to mimic?  I guess the answer would just be yes to both.

To me, though, in addition to all of my favorite movie / TV dads’ best qualities, I have this image in my head that a movie dad is the guy that actually follows through on all the things he says “would be awesome” or things he says he and his kids “should do” or when he begins a sentence with “Wouldn’t it be funny/awesome if…”  Or he’s the man that has the balls to do just about anything to make his kids smile or feel supreme love, protection, embarrassment, importance, confidence, or outright elation with their life.  Well, I mean, I realize that’s one diverse and multifaceted dad and it essentially makes him fictional.  But that’s the kind I want to be.

There are a hundred different types of dads, however, and a hundred different ways that they are currently NOT movie dads.  They do NOT do everything they want to do with their kids. They do NOT follow through on everything they should do, and they damn sure don’t follow through on the sentences that start out, “Wouldn’t it be awesome/funny if…”   And I wouldn’t accuse others if I didn’t feel equally shitty at fatherhood most of the time.

I see the product of poor parenting pretty much every day.  More accurately, I see the product of shitty fathers every day.  I don’t have to even know them.  I see their kids.  I’m a high school math teacher at a high poverty Title 1 school.  I see a LOT of their kids.  And most of them could DEFINITELY use a time machine to go back and spend some “movie dad” time with them.  These kids are the product of homes with far too much “just go play” and far too little “sure, LET’S go play.”   It’s all about quality time.  It will ALWAYS be about quality time.

And I’m sitting in the audience with them, listening to my owns words while nodding and saying, “Yep, that’s me.”  We can ALL do better.

So I’ll leave you with some suggestions.  These are as much for me as any other dads out there reading.  Feel free to steal them. Hell, if you actually DO steal them, please take a minute to throw a comment on this post to let me know how it went. 

But try some of these.  Or create your own.  If you feel like you need to do better as a father, you probably do.  I know I do.  That’s why I can make some suggestions, but they’re just as difficult for me to achieve, too, no matter how much I WANT to be a movie dad.  Being a movie dad takes us out of our comfort zone.  And that’s scary.  It’s actually one of the themes of this blog.  FEAR stops us from doing so much in this life.  Those things lead to regret later on.  So here’s a few to get us future movie dads started:

• Have a dance party.  This pretty much goes anytime of the day, any day of the week, no matter the gender or age of your child.
• Challenge them to beat you at pretty much anything.  You could even challenge them to see who can color code and line up M&M’s on the counter the fastest.  Your kid(s), boy or girl, will love this, especially if they get to eat them.
• See who can put the most lotion on mom’s feet.  This will be hilarious to the kid and good for you later in the bedroom.
• See how many Matchbox cars / rocks / macaroni noodles / marbles will go down the slide at the same time.  And you should definitely use flattened boxes or plastic to make the slide longer, too.  Because of course you should.
• Bubbles.  No matter how old they are, there is just magic in a damn bubble.
• Challenge each other to walk around Walmart or Lowes until you find the most expensive item.  I don’t encourage pranks that cost a business money like switching merchandise or price placards around, but there are a million different ways to be goofy or “prankish” inside a large store.   Find five of them to start.
• Have a snack picnic outside on a clear night.  Take a astrological phone app with you and find all the constellations.  Then create your own.
• Go with your daughter to have a mani-pedi.  Seriously, pedicures are amazing.  If they were cheaper, I would go weekly.  And then let her pick out your toenail polish.  Just do NOT let her pick glitter.  I have pink glitter polish on my toes from my last pedicure back in August.  Polish remover is no match for it.  None.
• Go explore the woods.  My daughter is thirteen and I told her we would do this when we moved into our house almost two years ago.  She’s a teenager and she still wants us to do this.  There will be no more excuses after I finish typing this.

It doesn’t matter if you are a shitty father, a great father, or some amoeba-like being in between.  You’re still a father to kids who deserve better than you’re probably giving.  And if you have no areas of fatherly weakness, then god bless you.  I wish there were more fathers like you. 

But for most of us, especially if you were led to this article because of addiction, we need work.  If you’re in the early stages of recovery like I am, you probably need a LOT of work.  But it simply does not matter how far gone you are.  It doesn’t matter if you’ve been an alcoholic for twenty years and you have fatherhood regrets that will haunt you until you are comfortably nestled in your grave.  You’ll have more if you don’t start now. 

In my heart, I know I was a good daddy to my daughter.  I was (and still am) probably in the top twenty percent of awesome daddies.  But I never set out to be “good” at anything I have ever done.  Why is the most important job I’ll ever do the job where I settle for average?  That makes no sense. 

Yeah, fatherhood can be VERY challenging and mind-numbing and maddening and playing blocks for the seven thousandth time can be boring as HELL, but we don’t become parents solely for our own entertainment.  But we think that way.  When it’s not much fun for us, we turn into the “just go play” fathers we never envisioned ourselves becoming.  So I plan on doing better.  I hope if you’re reading this that you do, too.  If you’re a recovering addict, I doubly expect it out of you.

And remember this: your enjoyment is the least important aspect of being a good father.  Fatherhood will always first and foremost be about meeting their needs by providing food, water, clothing, shelter, protection, and love, but there is a LOT of time to be memorable, too.  And when you have that time, it is THEIR smiles that matter.  But trust me on this.  If you do it right, you’ll smile a hundred times for the one time you made THEM smile.  

I never could have imagined how much I smile when I think about hard dinner rolls.