Here’s an answer to a question I get all the time: You know you’re a Lead Dad when you cancel your plans and step into the situation.
It’s the simplest definition. You’re the one whose schedule generally has more flexibility and you’re the one who will do it.
It doesn’t mean you’ll always do it – or that you knew right away that you had to do it. But over the years, your hesitation has decreased until you know this is what you’re going to do.
I had a crystal clear Lead Dad moment this weekend – and it was kismet for me revealing this portrait of a Lead Dad that Brian Mann from Kimble Mann created for his Glitched States project. (He’s unveiling more at The Real conference in New York this week.)
My wife and middle daughter were away together this weekend, which makes me so happy for them. I had the bookends of my daughters, two girls separated by eight years and many life stages of day-to-day interests.
I crushed it on Saturday – ping-ponging between activities and looping them into things they might not want to do – too-late-in-the-season apple picking, anyone? – and leaning on other parents for driving when I couldn’t. But I made it to the key things, in particular a Halloween parade that my oldest organized.
I was cruising into Sunday patting myself so hard on the back. I woke up when my youngest woke up – because there’s no more sleep at that point – and I went downstairs to start tanking up on coffee. Did I mention this is a three-day weekend for two of my kids?
It was 7am, and there was a text from the babysitter who I had lined up earlier in the week, confirmed twice and was expecting to show up at 10am for four hours. She woke up sick. She wasn’t coming.
Cancelling what I was going to do was the easiest part of the morning. But my youngest – she didn’t understand. She wanted to dress up as Rumi and she needed the babysitter to do her hair and makeup like she had before. My oldest, who was still asleep, would now get no one-on-one time with me, and I was confident that I would be late dropping her off to something she needed and probably drag her to other things she’d rather not be part of.
One of the greatest skills any Lead Dad or Lead Parent has is the ability to organize days, weeks, months so that you can juggle family, work, weekend obligations, weekend fun, some self-care and, perhaps even, time with your spouse. It’s as graceful as ballet when it’s working.
A Lead Parent’s kryptonite is any preplanned block of time that gets changed last minute – like a babysitter texting sickness hours before she’s set to arrive.
How you respond is the measure of the Lead Dad. Was I upset, angry and even bitter? No time for that then. Did I refocus on my girls and get on with the day? Of course. Forward motion is the key to being a Lead Dad. Perseverating on what could of, should have been can be cathartic but it doesn’t help in the moment.
This portrait and video captures the charges dancing around a Lead Dad’s brain. What do you think?
