Tuesday, June 7, 2016

I'm Not a Cool Dad. I'm Just an Older, Rounder, Grayer Version of Myself.

Sixteen months ago, I became a father for the very first time and it is pretty safe to say that life as Caeli’s dad has changed me for the better.

Truth be told, I never was a cool guy – single or married without children – so I might as well accept the axioms of fatherhood and do my best for the two females in my house. Now I have a mountain of other things to do not limited to the honey-do list my wife keeps adding to the pile (repair the fence, paint the kitchen, finish that gosh awful storage shed so we can get the lawnmower, my grill, and smoker in the building, etc.) and the infinite directions our church sends me as a servant to God, Mt. Zion, and those who need to see a shining light working for the Lord.

Of course being the “dude payin’ bills around here” is always precedent over ninety percent of the other things I could be doing.

For the first time, I’ve noted the dual irony of Father’s Day and Juneteenth as the same date. The slaves received word in Galveston of their freedom June 19, 1865 and Father’s Day is the day that fathers everywhere are celebrated for holding down the fort without being cajoled into it.

That being said…what happened to the ideology of the cool dad?

Life got in the way. I was needed to be more of a provider and teacher for Caeli than to be some trendsetter. In other words, I needed to be more Adrian Cedric, less Andre 3000. Bryant isn’t exactly Stankonia, you know.
Image result for andre 3000
Below are more signs that I’ve chunked up the deuces to being trendy:

·        I have the same number of sweater vests that I used to own in sneakers, and they are now in heavy rotation with the polo shirts I regularly wear to work.

·        My shoes have to be comfortable. After owning a number of Air Max sneakers as well as every retro basketball shoe I wanted save the blacked-out Air Jordan 7, long term comfort means a little more to me these days than “killin’them boys” because my joints aren’t as elastic as they were in my late teens and early to mid-twenties.

·        When I purchase cars, I only want the windows tinted. As much as I’d like to gut the electronics in my Escape and swap out the factory 15” wheels for some 22s, those days are long gone. Even so, the extent of the attention that needs to be given is the alma mater license plate on my wife’s car. [Support our Reddies!] Reliability (and miles per gallon) means a lot more these days.

·        Instead of coloring my grey hairs, I’m just going to keep the patch in the front of my Afro. At the age of 37, there is no reason to chase the trend and get dreadlocks.

·        Rap before 2005 was worth keeping up with and I have the multiple CD cases as proof. After that, I think I’ve purchased four CDs in the Obama years – and one was the mixtape from my wedding! These days, all of my music is downloaded to six Spotify files.

·        You still won’t catch me dancing anywhere, but it may be a good idea to learn how to make rhythm-deficient bones work together before Caeli’s first father-daughter dance.


·        Thank God for DXL! Big guys and dads like me need a clothing store we feel comfortable purchasing from without having to go online to Eddie Bauer or hide in JC Penney.

·        Travel. Sheeeeeetttt. Better have a contingency plan for any and every thing that can possibly happen and two changes of clothes for baby bear just in case. In addition, said trips must be no further than two hours away from home because of the constant diaper changes.

·        Moreover, I was never really in these streets. Chalk that up to both workaholism and the perceived Negropean factor for why I come across as culturally lost.

·        The “black dad” lingo. Anytime you hear me start a sentence with “whatcha know ‘bout…” or any use of the MF word [hey, Bernie Mac told us it could be used as a noun, verb, or adjective], you know I’ve fully crossed into black dad English. Plus, my GAF* ratio is somewhere around 10:1.

·        Getting old also means lamenting the death of Vibe magazine even if it was ten years ago. I still remember that Toni Braxton cover from May ’97!

While becoming decidedly more uncool than I was before marriage and child, fatherhood is unequivocally more rewarding. I wouldn’t trade this life for anything. 

Just don’t question my footwear choices at the grill (barefoot with snakeskin loafers) or the beat-up black Fila low top shoes everywhere else, and we’ll be fine. However, do expect me to mangle up the slang the kids use today or snicker at the Running Man or whatever trendy dance they are doing today as if I can do them the first time around.

I guess I can quote Yo Gotti and tell y’all to “cut it.” 

Happy Father’s Day to the rest of you brothers holding down the fort even in our rounder, grayer states.


*GAF – give a f**k 
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