Vol. 161 - Menza Menz

On being a "so-so" dad

The other night, as we sat at our table over a bowl of rigatoni, I asked my son how I was doing as a father. I told him to think about it, to tell me absolute truth as he felt it, and to not hold any punches.

I explained that we don’t learn anything by being told we’re great (not that I expected that to be his response… hoped, maybe… but not expected); that we learn a lot more from our losses and mistakes than we do from our wins.

He chewed on a piece of pasta, pondering the question. His eyes darted around the room as his brain recounted god knows how many moments in his life as my son (knowing his brain, it recounted every moment in his life as my son).

After a few silent moments, he pulled his hand up to his face and rotated it from side to side.

“So so?” I asked.

He smiled.

“Yeah. Menza menz,” he said with a laugh, repeating a old Italian-American phrase he’s heard countless times that colloquially means “so so.”

My gut feeling was obvious: it hurt like a dagger. But I couldn’t let that emotion show, lest my son try to sugarcoat the truth, and did my best to remain unphased.

I pressed him a bit, asking what could take me from “menza menz” to “Best Dad Ever.”

“Look at your phone less,” he said. “Don’t drive to Winston-Salem every day. Don’t curse at other people when you’re driving.”

Expecting a whole lot more, more that cut to the core of who I was both as a human and as a father, I was relieved.

Look at my phone less.

Like most of us, I absolutely look at my phone too much. And so I need to develop better habits, to keep it more in check. For a while, Emily and I had a little space on our kitchen counter where phones went and stayed while we were in the house. I think we need to go back to that.

Don’t drive to Winston-Salem every day.

To be clear, I don’t drive to Winston-Salem every day. I drive there—90 minutes west of our home—twice a week, to teach journalism at Wake Forest University. And I only do it between early January and late April and again from early September until early December. It’s a gig I love and one I think I’m pretty good at. But I leave the house as soon as my kids are off to school and I don’t get home until around 6:30pm, which is about an hour before their bedtime. This gives me roughly one hour of quality time with them on Mondays and Wednesdays. But, to my son, those two days feel like every day. And that means I’m gone too much. I either need to reorganize my teaching schedule so that I get back closer to when they arrive home from school or I need to quit that job completely. It’s not worth missing out on time with my kids, especially when it feels to them like more than it actually is.

Don’t curse at other people when I’m driving.

He’s right. And so is Emily, who gets upset when my Jersey-bred road rage (too often) rears its ugly head. All my kids see is a father who can’t contain his anger and who thinks calling someone a “goddamn motherfucking jerkoff cocksucker” from the sanctity of my own car is somehow acceptable. It’s not. Even if people down here drive like goddamn motherfucking jerkoff cocksuckers. I need to fix it.

“That’s it?” I asked.

He cocked his head sideways, thinking for a moment before pursing his lips and shaking his head up and down.

“That’s it.”

“Well I can do that.”

“Do it then,” he challenged.

What shocked me about my son’s revelation wasn’t that he thinks I’m doing a so-so job, as much as it hurt to hear him say that. It wasn’t that he apparently doesn't see my big flaws and shortcomings—at least the ones that I think are big—as both a man and a father.

It was how things that, to me, seem tiny and relatively innocuous are, to him, massive.

My phone holding too much of my attention. My anger at other drivers. Most importantly, the two days I spend away from home each week. In my son’s limited purview, these seemingly small transgressions are huge. Huge enough to downgrade me from great, past good, and all the way to so so.

Menza menz.

Fare meglio.