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“I want to be like you, Dad”

For some reason, my boys have taken a liking to hanging out in the shop with me. Several times in an evening I’ll hear, “Got anything I can do, Dad?”  Now, if you’re like me, I use my shop time as a time to relax and unwind and, well…sometimes just sit and think. (I have a nice padded shop stool by my workbench for such occassions.) And sometimes, when I’m in the middle of a complicated procedure or measurement, I’ll have to politely shoo the boys out of the shop so I can concentrate.

But I had an experience the other day that made me stop and think. I was finishing up the drawers for the cabinet under my workbench. (Read my original post here.) My three youngest boys had migrated to the shop because it was too cold to play outside. I put my 11-year old to work on installing the Accuride drawer slides. The 10-year old was helping him.

The 7-year old was watching me build the drawer boxes. I could tell he was just waiting for something to do. So I put three sides of the drawer box together, handed him the bottom panel, and his eyes just lit up. He slid the bottom into the groove with a big grin on his face. I finished the box and went to install the drawer slides. I used a centering punch to mark the screw locations, so I let him “tap” it with the hammer. As he watched me drive the screws home he said, “Dad, you know what I wanna’ do when I grow up?”  I stopped and listened. “When I grow up, I wanna’ be just like you.”  I didn’t know what to say. I immediately thought of the hit song “Cat’s in the Cradle.” I don’t want to be the father who never has time for his kid(s).

Needless to say, I was taken aback. I literally stopped what I was doing and thought about the enormity of what my 7-year old was saying and the responsibility that comes with it.

Whether we want to admit it or not, and whether we feel worthy or not, and no matter how much we’ve screwed up, our kids look up to us. Don’t take that responsibility lightly. Enjoy the time you have with your kids…no matter how old they are. Make time for your kids. It’s an investment that yields benefits for generations.

Posted on Tuesday, March 6th, 2007 at 10:20 am. Filed under Woodworking.
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2 Responses to ““I want to be like you, Dad””

Joel Hess said,

Randy, Sounds like you’ve got a good thing going. I too had a chance to spend some time with my grandson in the shop. To paraphrase the Amex commercials, “Time in the shop with your (grand)kids. Priceless.” -JoelMakin' stuff in the workshop with Grandpa

(posted on March 6th, 2007 at 10:51 am)

Luis said,

Randy:
I read your note about your younger said and I have to say ” I know how that feels”. We think we as dads are ready to hear from our sons anything. Nothing far from the truth. Its very impressive when we hear something like that. As you said they see us all the time but we are giving them the best example of us just by doing what we do at the shop. My dad use to be carpenter, and I decide for electronics. Now on my 57 I sudently turned to woodworking. I took the old dad’s tools from hes old shop and with few new ones I’m doing woodworking. All my friends just ask how and when I learned all that. Well Randy, my only answer to that is, ” all this came from my dad”
Luis…

(posted on March 7th, 2007 at 2:20 pm)