I Keep Being the Police Officer Parent
Most days I hear it before I notice I'm doing it. Don't. Stop. Not like that. Get down. The boys aren't even doing anything wild. I'm just managing. Keeping the house from tipping over. By dinner I've said more corrections than anything else, and I can feel the gap between that and the dad I keep telling myself I want to be. I want them to remember playing, not just being told no. Most days those two jobs feel like they can't occupy the same hour.
I used to think that was just what two little boys require. Somebody has to hold the line. Somebody has to keep them from climbing the furniture. That's true. It also isn't the whole story. If I'm honest, the managing is easier than sitting down with them. It looks like I'm doing something. Sitting on the floor doesn't.
Not Because They Don't Need Rules. Because Rules Became the Whole Day.
Not because they don't need correction. Because I let the correction eat every other kind of minute. The sitting-around minutes. The walking-around minutes. The ones that were supposed to be for something besides managing them.
That's the part I don't like admitting. I'm not failing because I'm too strict. I'm failing because I keep confusing control with being present.
Moses didn't tell Israel to set up a quiet morning and call it done.
These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Deuteronomy 6:6-7
When you sit. When you walk. When you lie down. When you get up. That's the whole day. If those hours are nothing but don't and stop, there isn't much left to impress on anybody.
The Voice I Catch Too Late
Reflection doesn't turn me into a different dad by dinner. What it does is smaller. On the days I've actually written down that I was the police officer again, I catch the managing voice sooner. Not because I became someone else overnight. Because I'd already named, on paper, that I was crowding out the minutes that actually shape them.
If you're trying to be with your kids and you keep hearing yourself run the house instead, Reflect is free to try for 7 days. It won't turn you into a different dad by dinner. It'll help you notice you're the one filling every minute with a rule.
Still Learning to Sit Down
I'm not writing this because I've solved it. Most days I still default to the managing voice. But I'm becoming less interested in running a tight house and more interested in living into the dad who actually sits down with them, even when the furniture is not safe and the water is about to hit the floor.
Some afternoons I catch it. Some I don't, and I have to own that the next morning instead of pretending the day was fine.
That's not becoming the dad who has it figured out. That's just learning to stop managing long enough to actually be there.
Try Reflect free for 7 days: reflect.forgedagents.io/welcome
Trent Jones is the author of the Forged Agents blog and builder of "Reflect", a daily reflection companion for living in the present, in peace, with joy.
