Welcome to Portraits of Fatherhood: We’re telling the story of today’s dads.
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There is no better place to witness the changing roles of men and women in the larger culture than through the lens of parenthood. But rather than speculate on what and how contemporary fathers do what they do, we’d like to bring you portraits of the dads themselves. In their own words. Would you like to be interviewed for this feature? See the end of the post for details.
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NAME Eric Olofson
AGE 34
HOMETOWN / WHERE DO YOU LIVE NOW?: I was raised in Renton, WA, but now live in Crawfordsville, IN
@TWITTER: @EricLOlofson
ON THE WEB http://www.wabash.edu/academics/profiles/home.cfm?site_folder=psychology&vdeptid=4&facname=olofsone
NUMBER OF CHILDREN Two daughters
WORK Full time
RELATIONSHIP STATUS Married
HOW DO YOU COMBINE WORK AND FAMILY?
I am fortunate enough to have a spouse that can stay home and take care of our girls. Carrie has been home since our oldest, now five and in kindergarten, was born, and she’ll continue to be at home until our youngest goes to kindergarten herself in a year-and-a-half. So my wife has certainly arranged her life to care for the kids, but I have also done so as much as possible. We bought a house that is a 2-minute bike ride from my office at the college where I teach, which was a very intentional choice on our part to enable me to see my family as much as possible. Being so close has allowed me to come home for lunch nearly every day to see Carrie and the girls. Combine this with the fact that I can stay at home until 15 minutes before my morning class begins and can be home by 5:00pm means that I get to see my daughters for 3-4 hours every work day. This doesn’t even include the many times that they walk to campus to visit me during my day or to visit my classes (I teach child development and fatherhood, so I have great excuses to incorporate them into my work day!) As I tell the students in my fatherhood course every year, choosing to live so close to my work is one of the wisest decisions I’ve made as a father. Most days, the longest I go without seeing my children is 4 hours. That kind of frequent contact makes me feel constantly connected with their lives.
HOW HAS PARENTING CHANGED YOU AS AN INDIVIDUAL?
I try to be a better person, but I’m not sure how much I succeed. I discuss it more in Question 6, but I’m the kind of person who reflexively yells obscenities at people who cut me off in traffic. I’m also a bit of a control freak (just ask my students!). In the past, I recognized that those weren’t very attractive characteristics, but it was being a parent that made me get serious about addressing them. Saying that I’ve changed as a result of being a parent might be giving myself too much credit, but I like to think I’ve made some progress.
I’m also much more likely to give other families the benefit of the doubt. I no longer give that parent with the unruly kid the evil eye, because I know that perhaps he just didn’t have a nap, or perhaps he has a developmental disorder. And even though I might be wrong—maybe he really is a spoiled brat with a parent who doesn’t discipline—I understand just how much I don’t know about their lives, and how easy it is for a hard day to make a good family look bad.
IF PARTNERED, HOW HAS PARENTING AFFECTED YOUR RELATIONSHIP?
The most noticeable effect is that we have less time for each other, but because we expected that it hasn’t had a negative impact on our relationship. We got married thinking that we’d wait 5 years to have children. Two more were added to those 5, and the 7 years we had to grow as a couple were probably why we’ve been able to adjust to parenthood without it hurting our relationship. All of the wrinkles that need to be ironed out in any marriage—such as how to disagree without fighting, deciding on values (religious, political, or otherwise), and managing money—were mostly ironed out before kids. We are both very different people now than when we were married, but because we could make those changes as a team and without the high-stakes stress that comes when children are involved, we are actually more similar now than when we were married. When we do disagree about how to parent, we discuss it in private so that we can present a united front to our girls.
Sure, we often wish we had more time with just the two of us, and living far away from family means that we don’t have willing relatives to watch the kids for free while we have a date night. That can be difficult, but we each recognize that our marriage is at the center of our family, and because we are both focused on holding that center, things tend not to fall apart.
WHAT ARE YOUR STRENGTHS AS A PARENT AND WHAT ARE YOUR WEAKNESSES?
Strengths: I think that my decision to live close to work and spend as much time as possible at home has been good for my daughters. We spend leisure time together every day, playing, cooking, reading, or whatever else is going on. Every school day I’m the one who gets up and makes them breakfast and gets my oldest ready for school, and I do the bedtime routine every night. But as good as that high quantity involvement may be, it’s not enough if it’s not also high quality.
The two ways that I try to make sure that my time with them is impactful are by being sensitive to their perspective and by knowing the goals I have for them. Research is clear that for both mothers and fathers, it is critical for parents to be sensitive and child-centered in their interactions. That doesn’t mean letting children call the shots—far from it, in fact—but rather that parents consider their child’s perspective. For example, if we’re building with Legos, I might want us to make a large spaceship. While it’s good for parents to set lofty goals that require a little parental assistance to complete, they also need to recognize when their children don’t share the goals. If she would rather make a castle, a sensitive, child-centered parent would follow her lead. I’m still going to encourage her to make a castle that’s just a little more complex than she would have made on her own, but I’m not going to get anywhere by trying to force her to follow my path. This is especially true when they are upset; I might not think that the spilled milk is worth crying over, but perhaps my 3-year-old was very proud that she poured the cup by herself. I think I’m good at seeing situations from their perspective, which helps me understand their distress and help them through it.
The second way is by having clear goals that guide my parenting. I’m consistent in the values that I present to our girls, and Carrie and I agree on these. Being a developmental psychologist, I have some strong views about what the research suggests about what kinds of skills drive children’s success. I’m particularly impressed by the work of Carol Dweck, Angela Duckworth, and others who show the importance of children’s ability to persevere through challenges and value hard work over easy success. Those abilities are also closely related to children’s ability to regulate their emotions. Children who can overcome frustration, anger, sadness, and the like are much better able to work through challenges, whether in the classroom or on the playground. The data are also convincing that fathers have an important role to play, and perhaps even a greater role than do mothers when it comes to emotion regulation. I want my girls to excel in these areas, and having this clear set of goals has helped Carrie and I be consistent in how we treat them. When they succeed, we praise the work that they put in, not their answers. We consistently reinforce the importance of staying calm.
One of my favorite quotes comes from Charles Brewer, an award-winning professor emeritus of psychology at Furman University. In a spin on a famous Lewis Carroll quote, Brewer said “if you don’t know where you are going, the probability that you’ll get there borders on randomness.” Despite my many flaws as a parent, I know where I want my daughters and I to go.
Weaknesses: I am naturally inclined to be the opposite of all of those things I want my girls to be and just about all of the things I need to do to get them there. So while I am constantly trying to do the right thing—such as following their goals rather than forcing them to do what I want—my tendencies towards being a control freak undermine my efforts. I have also been prone to losing my cool since I was very young. So while I often start off being child-centered (letting my daughter put her own toothpaste on the brush, for example) and trying not to get upset when she empties a teaspoon of toothpaste on the toothbrush, I rarely succeed as much as I want to. Before I know it, I’m using an angry voice and putting the toothpaste on myself. (This is also why I see my outburst when I was driving as my worst parenting moment; it was me failing at demonstrating the most important value I preach to my children.) I often want them to act much older than they are, and then I get upset when they inevitably fall short of that impossible standard.
Those traits also make it difficult to be a patient teacher. I’m very fortunate to be married to a woman who is fantastic at motivating our oldest daughter to complete her homework in a way that makes it fun, because I turn into a harsh taskmaster too quickly. I constantly try to improve, but more often than not, I realize that it’s for the best if Carrie takes over helping our daughter with her schoolwork while I take a step back.
IF PARTNERED, WHAT ARE YOUR PARTNER’S STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES?
Carrie is great at covering for my weaknesses. Whenever I am struggling to keep calm, she respectfully takes over. There is never an undermining undercurrent to it; it’s always done as helpful, to take over what is clearly frustrating to me. And I do it in return. When she might not understand our children’s point of view during a conflict, I’ll advocate for them in a way that doesn’t step on her toes. We also communicate about those times afterwards, both so that we can improve in the future and so that we don’t misinterpret why the other person stepped in.
WHO ELSE PROVIDES CHILDCARE FOR YOUR CHILDREN?
We don’t live near any family and we’re a pretty frugal bunch, so our girls are almost never in paid childcare. We have an amazing neighbor with children similar ages as ours, and if we need to drop off a child for any reason that’s an option, but otherwise we don’t get out by ourselves. It’s difficult, but we try to make sure that we spend our evenings at home enjoying each other’s company, which helps us keep up the romantic relationship in addition to the parental one.
WHAT IS YOUR WORST PARENTING MOMENT?
We were driving to Chicago to visit my sister and I relied too heavily on my GPS, which did not know that several sections of interstate were no longer in use. Long story short, I found myself driving around the same abandoned sections of interstate, desperately trying to get back onto the road that would lead me past Gary, Indiana and into Chicago. As time dragged on, I began to feel more and more trapped, and I got angrier and angrier. My 5-year-old daughter kept asking when we were going to get to her auntie’s house, and at some point I lost it, shouting something like “I HAVE NO IDEA! CAN YOU PLEASE JUST BE QUIET AND STOP ASKING ME! I’M DOING THE BEST THAT I CAN!” She started to cry, which made her younger sister start to cry, and I felt terrible that I let them see me acting more like a child than an adult. I want my daughters to be able to look up to me as someone who can keep his anger in check, and I totally failed. I just hope that they were young enough that they don’t remember that for the rest of their lives!
WHAT IS YOUR BEST PARENTING MOMENT?
Like most parents, I dwell on my mistakes and the things I want to improve rather than on what I do well. Taking time to pat myself on the back doesn’t seem very helpful. But I started a bit of a tradition with my oldest daughter that has grown into something better than I could have hoped. When she was four-years-old, I started making up bedtime stories about a Princess Grey and her adventures. My daughter has long dark blonde hair and her middle name is Grey, and Princess Grey was just a little bit older than she was and also happened to have long dark blonde hair. The combination of these details meant that my daughter could identify with Princess Grey and aspire to be her at the same time. Now, I’m the least creative person I know, as evidenced by the fact that the place names and character types are all out of Lord of the Rings and The Song of Ice and Fire, but in the nearly two years since I began I have told hundreds of stories about Princess Grey and her wisdom, courage, and ability to solve problems as diverse as how to save a grove of pear trees to how to convince the king of the griffins to anoint the daughter of peasants as the new monarch. I couldn’t fight my daughter’s infatuation with princesses, but I have been able to use that to generate aspirations of confident and capable leadership instead of aspirations of beauty that serve to attract the attention of princes. When my daughter solves problems or shows courage, she’s proud that she is “just like Princess Grey.” I’m not sure what moment spurred me to start this tradition, but whatever moment it was certainly qualifies as my best.
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We’re looking for a few good dads.
IF you’d like to be interviewed for this feature, please write to Lisa Duggan at: [email protected]
Please write “Portraits of Fatherhood” in the subject line.