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Actions Speak Louder
Carl Wilke, University Place, WA
From Dads Behaving DADLY 2: 72 More Truths, Tears, and Triumphs of Modern Fatherhood Copyright © 2015 Motivational Press. Reprinted with permission. By Hogan Hilling and Al Watts.
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Over the twenty years, I have been a parent, one of the biggest fears I have faced has come from within. It is the fear that sometimes I might be hurting my children instead of helping them grow into happy and productive adults.
What exacerbates this fear is not seeing tangible results of my parenting right away, and often not for years later. In fact, sometimes when my kids are squabbling or misbehaving, I question myself. I have tried to remain as true to my parental convictions as possible, knowing I am going to make mistakes along the way, but hoping and praying success will overcome failure.
As with most families, the first child gets to bear the brunt of the parental learning curve while he or she blazes a trail through childhood. In my family, that trailblazer was my daughter, Nora.
I have had the privilege to be a full-time stay-at-home dad for the last fourteen years as our family has grown to include six children, now ranging in age from two to twenty. Perhaps the greatest benefit of being so actively involved in the day-to-day lives of my children is how close I am with them.
Nora and I spent many hours together over the years building our relationship: time spent in my lap as a toddler reading books and playing games on road trips across the country; time spent as an adolescent in conversation about friends and God and boys and school and death of loved ones; time spent as a teenager teaching her how to drive a car and planning for life after high school. Throughout her life, Nora has challenged me to be a better father through her creativity and determination to do things her own, unique way. At times I felt I was not getting through to her because she was not following my suggestions. I feared that perhaps I had failed her somehow.
Raising a teenager does not follow a direct or easy path. Her Senior year in high school was particularly challenging because I felt she lacked direction and purpose in her academic studies, seeming indecisive about what to do after graduation. On top of that, my wife was pregnant with our sixth child who was born three days before Nora graduated. Then, two days after her graduation, Nora was on an airplane, moving nearly 2,000 miles away, back to Wisconsin where we had lived for most of her life to be closer to her friends and extended family. I felt emotionally drained from those five crazy days. Baby born. Daughter graduated. Daughter gone.
I figured my job as an active parent in my daughter’s life was over. Throughout the next year, I learned how wrong I was. Thanks to modern technology we talked nearly every day on the phone and saw each other on FaceTime several times each week. She called to ask my opinion and advice. I watched her make a lot of positive life choices even though her path was not what I had thought it would be. She was not going to college right out of high school. Instead, she was working two or three part-time jobs, volunteering with the middle school youth at her church and singing and songwriting.
It was her passion for music that allowed me to understand how my actions as a parent had been received. I was driving during one of our phone conversations (using a hands-free device, of course!). She told me she had worked on a new song she wanted me to hear right away. I pulled over to the side of the road to give it my full attention. She began to sing a song she titled “Actions Speak Louder”:
Verse 1:
One time my Dad was walking down State Street
And he saw some people in need
When they asked for money, he said instead,
“Would you prefer to have something to eat?”
Then he went to Arby’s and said, “Look here
I want to buy a ton of roast beef and curly fries.
Just to give to my friends in need
Living on the street”
Burgers and fries might not seem like much
But you’d be surprised
Chorus:
Actions speak louder than words, louder than words
And we want to make His name, make His name heard
Make His name heard
Because you know that love is not what you say
It’s not what you say
Because you show your love when you give it away
When you give it away, when you give it away
Verse 2:
I asked my Dad how come he helped those men
He said, “Well Honey, Jesus would call them friends.”
He took me to Seattle and there I saw
An alarming number of breaking hearts
A man was sitting with a weathered sign
Huddled in the wind and the freezing rain
Just to see what a smile could change
For someone living in pain
You wouldn’t believe the look he gave
When I said he could sit inside
Bridge:
Let Jesus guide your hand, bringing justice to this land
Jesus guide my hand and bring justice to this land
Jesus guide my hand
(Lyrics by Nora Wilke. © 2014. Reprinted with permission)
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As I sat, listening to her beautiful voice and guitar, I felt so many emotions wash over me. First, I was blown away by the fact that my daughter remembered something I had done about five years ago when we were living in Madison, Wisconsin. Second, I felt validated that my actions as a parent had gotten through to her.
She had received in full the messages I had been trying to send through the way I chose to live my life. She understood all people mattered and we should be kind to others, especially those who are in less fortunate circumstances.
Third, I felt proud of my daughter for using her gifts of singing and songwriting to create such a beautiful and moving song. She was singing from her heart and was not afraid to share her beliefs with other people. I remember thinking to myself, “She gets it. She really gets it.”
The final emotions I felt were a sense of relief and accomplishment. Relief that my daughter was grounded in her values and could recognize what was important in life. Accomplishment in the humble sense that my daughter was becoming a mature adult, due in part to the many years of hard work by my wife and me. While she is and was becoming her own person, I was feeling thankful in that moment, and I genuinely liked who she was becoming.
While there was no “Mission Accomplished” banner flying from my house that day, there were tears staining my face as I called Nora back to tell her how much I loved her song. It was hard to put into words for her just how meaningful it was for me to know that all of the years of hard work, tears, sacrifices, and prayer were worth it. I told her again how proud I was of her and how much I loved her. She told me, “Thanks, Dad. I already knew. Your actions always showed me that.”
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Carl Wilke is blessed to be the father to six amazing children, ages 20, 15, 13, 10, 5 and 2 and a husband to his lovely wife for 22 years living in the Seattle, WA area. He grew up in Wisconsin and taught elementary school for six years before becoming a full-time stay-at-home dad in 2000. He blogs at www.bigcheesedad.comwhen not playing sports and outdoor activities such as hiking, biking, and kayaking with his kids. At 6’8″ tall, Carl is the tallest SAHD in America! One of his stories also appeared in Dads Behaving DADLY: 67 Truths, Tears, and Triumphs of Modern Fatherhood.
Hogan Hilling is a nationally recognized and OPRAH approved author of 12 published books. Hilling has appeared on Oprah. He is the creator of the DADLY book series and the “#WeLoveDads” and “#WeLoveMoms” Campaigns, which he will launch in early 2018. He is also the owner of Dad Marketing, a first of its kind consultation firm on how to market to dads. He is also the founder of United We Parent. Hilling is also the author of the DADLY book series and first of its kind books. The first book is about marketing to dads “DADLY Dollar$” and two coffee table books that feature dads and moms. “DADLY Dads: Parents of the 21st Century” and “Amazing Moms: Parents of the 21st Century.” Hilling is the father of three children and lives in southern California.
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Originally published in Dads Behaving DADLY 2: 72 More Truths, Tears, and Triumphs of Modern Fatherhood Copyright © 2015 Motivational Press. Reprinted with permission.
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