Dad Guilt Hits Different

Nobody really talks about the guilt that comes with being a father.

The moments we replay.
The pressure we carry.
The fear of getting it wrong.
The struggle of trying to be better than the example we grew up with.

In this episode of Mostly Me Occasionally Wise, Brian gets real about fatherhood, the invisible weight dads carry, and the quiet moments that stick with us long after our kids forget them.

This episode is honest, emotional, relatable, and mixed with the humor and real-life perspective the podcast is known for.

If you’ve ever stayed up wondering whether you’re doing enough as a parent… this one’s for you.

Also, if you’re new to the show, be sure to check out previous episodes covering everything from hidden 80s movie gems to the hilarious things we swore we’d never say as parents.

Because none of us really know what we’re doing…
we’re all just trying our best.

Stay mostly you… occasionally wise.

Thanks for listening to Mostly Me, Occasionally Wise.

If this episode meant something to you, take a second to follow the show, leave a rating, and share it with someone who needs to hear it. That’s how this podcast grows.

Join the group on Facebook by clicking the link below!

https://www.facebook.com/me/

Have a question, story, or topic idea?
 Email the show at mostlymecontact@gmail.com

(By emailing the show, you agree your message may be read on a future episode unless you request otherwise.)

Until next time — stay mostly you, and occasionally wise.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Do you ever lay in bed at night replaying a moment with your kids like it was game film? Maybe it was something you said too harshly, a promise you forgot, a moment you've rushed through because you were tired, stressed, distracted, or just being a human. Yeah, me too. And and I think every dad carries stuff like that around more than we like to admit. So let's talk about that. Welcome back to Mostly Me, Occasionally Wives, the podcast where we talk about life, nostalgia, parenting, movies, mistakes, and all the messy things in between. I'm your host, Brian, and in today's episode, we're talking about something I think almost every father feels, but not many dads actually say out loud. Dad guilt. Not the fake social media version where everybody acts perfect online. I mean the real stuff, the quiet stuff, the moments you replay in your head long after everyone else has forgotten them. And honestly, this episode isn't about pretending dads have all the answers. It's about admitting maybe we don't. And maybe that's okay. So let's get into Dad Life Debrief and talk about my week. If you're new to the podcast, Dad Life Debrief is an opportunity for you as the listener to hang out with me outside the radio airwaves and experience life of being a husband, a father, family man, everything in between. This week was all about Becca. It was Mother's Day weekend. I approached the boys before Mother's Day rolled around, and I wanted them to decide what they were going to get mom this year without any input from me. So they knocked it out of the park. I was it melted my heart what they came up with. Friday night, the 13-year-old wanted to spend some one-on-one time with Becca. So they went and got their toes done. After that, they got some boba tea. They came home, said goodnight to the four-year-old, and then they were off to play racquetball. Becca was so tired afterwards, but you could definitely see the glow in her face. It meant the world to her. Saturday rolls around. It's all about the four-year-old then. The four-year-old and Becca love going to the farmer's market. And they always come home with something, usually fresh cookies for dad, because I just I'm a cookie monster. I love cookies, especially farmer market cookies. I don't know what it is, if some sort of voodoo magic they put in those cookies. By far some of the best cookies I've ever had. Farmer market cookies. If you've never had any, find your local farmer market and go. So Becca and the four-year-old went to the farmer's market, came home and rested for a little while, and they got back out, got some pineapple whips. Sunday rolls around. We go to church. Had a fantastic time at church. The message was just amazing as always. We come home. I have to rest a little bit because unfortunately, I have to work Mother's Day night. The boys decide that they are going to take Becca fishing while I'm taking a nap. And they had a great time. They all caught a fish. Fortunately, the rain never came, so they caught a break there. When they came home, I woke up and we took Becca out to her favorite place here locally to eat. It was just such an amazing weekend. And I was so glad that we were able to celebrate Becca because she deserves the world for what she does, you know, for the kids and I. I will we had something funny last night happen. And if you have boys, I'm sure you've experienced this too in some way, shape, or form. The four-year-old loves bubble baths. And when he doesn't have bubbles in his bath, he he's usually pretty upset. But I ran to the store yesterday because I knew we were out, found some bubbles, told him it was bath time, surprised him with the bubble bath. So I we're at the point with him, we're trying to give him a little more privacy when he when he takes baths. Don't get me wrong, we check on him every two to three minutes, or we yell his name and he responds back just to let us know he's doing okay. I'm eating dinner in the dining room with Becca and the 13-year-old and the four-year-old taking a bath in our bathtub, and he yells for me to come look at something. So I get up and go in there, and when I walk in there, he has somehow stacked bubbles upon bubbles around his penis area. And he's, you know, has his hands on his head and he's like, Daddy, look at my penis. And I'm like, that's that's great, bud. You got you got a bubble penis. That's amazing. And he's like, I know, and it's so big. My penis is so big. I have a smile on my face at this point. I'm like, you're right, you're right, bud. Your penis is so big. You have an amazing bubble penis. And of course, he smiles and then he sits back down. So it's little moments, it never fails. We have little moments like that weekly, and this week it was all about bubble penis. Now let's talk about dad guilt. I don't think good dads are dads who never mess up. I think good dads are the ones who care enough to worry about it afterwards. The fact that guilt exists at all probably means love exists too. Let's be real, bad fathers usually don't sit awake wondering if they're doing enough. The dads that are trying their hardest, those are the ones that are carrying the weight. And maybe we need to give ourselves a little grace sometimes. Not excuses, grace. And there is a difference. Which brings me to my first point. I think one of the weirdest parts of becoming a father is realizing the pressure never really shuts off. Even when you're sitting still, your brain isn't. You're thinking things like, am I providing enough? Am I present enough? Am I being patient enough? And and the one I think about a lot is, am I screwing this up somehow? Because as a dad, it feels like being respon it kind of feels like you're being responsible for people you love more than yourself while also trying to figure it out at the same time. You know, nobody hands you a manual for this stuff. You're just out here winging it with love, exhaustion, a whole lot of caffeine, and of course the occasional panic. And the crazy thing is, most dads won't even say when they're struggling with guilt. We joke and said, we we we deflect, we we say famous phrases like, they'll be fine. Meanwhile, we're mentally replaying something dumb that we said 14 years ago, it seems like the invisible weight really hits hard because of my situation. I'm in a unique situation because our boys are adopted, and with the 13-year-old, he has past trauma. So the dad guilt game is strong with him. I want to be the best man role model, just male figure I can be for him. There's a lot of distrust there because of what has happened in the past. So it's hard for him to lower that guard and let me in sometimes. And that's sometimes where we clash because I'm trying to be all of these positive things for him. It just doesn't land sometimes. I can be met with a pushback, or he just acts like he just doesn't care. And that bothers me. And it's not his fault, it's it's the people in the past before he moved in with us. It's their fault if we're if we're pointing fingers. I forget that sometimes, and like I said, I get frustrated, and that frustrating, that frustration starts to show, and sometimes it leads to an argument. And of course, my amazing wife oftentimes has to reel me back in, and she's like, Hey, you have to remember his past, and it's not done out of resentment towards you, it's just he doesn't know what it's like to have an amazing dad like you are. Boom, dad guilt hits, I feel awful, probably the rest of the night. So this invisible weight thing, ugh, it sticks with you. And as far as dad guilt is concerned, it's a it's a it's a big one, it's a heavy one. My next point, you know what really gets you as a dad? It's usually not the giant moments, it it's the small stuff. Missing bedtime because work ran late, or saying not right now too many times, being distracted while your kid is trying to show you something incredibly important, and it could be a drawing of something that looks like a haunted potato, but to them it mattered. And sometimes the guilt comes from realizing your kids are growing in real time while you're just surviving adulthood. This part hits so hard because one day they want you to watch every cartwheel, they want you to see all the drawings, they want you to witness all these things that may not be important to you, but it is to them, and then suddenly they don't ask anymore, and you wish you had those moments back. And when that happens, the the thought alone could wreck any grown man and bring him down to his knees. There's a phrase I heard growing up, and it goes like oftentimes when you think about memories, you tend to lean towards more of the negative ones versus the positive ones. And with dad guilt, that that's that's true. It's it's an honest statement. And and it's one of the biggest realizations I had as a father. There are moments I still feel guilty about. And the funny thing about it is my kids probably don't even remember any of the things I'm feeling guilty about. You know, it could be a rough day, a sharp tone, missing something small, being distracted, working too much one week. Meanwhile, your kids probably remember moments like laughing with you, movie nights, the dumb inside jokes, the awesome bedtime routines, the random trips to wherever you're going, and just the way home feels and always has felt. Kids don't usually grow up remembering one imperfect moment. They remember patterns, they remember love, they remember presence, they remember consistency. And I think dads forget that sometimes because we grade ourselves way harder than our own children do. Another one that really hits hard is this this point here. You know, I I talk with Uncle Rob a lot about having boys that we've adopted because he's adopted a kid of their own. And I beat myself up about all the bad things, you know, that I should have done better. I should have handled this situation better, I should have approached it in this manner. But one thing he always circles back around to is celebrate and enjoy the small things. Yes, there are gonna be moments where there where it's intense, where it can be chaotic, where you're gonna clash with your kid. And when that occurs, you're not perfect. You're gonna mess up. But when that occurs, take a moment, step back, and just celebrate the small things, the small moments you have with your kids, because they're not gonna remember, you know, when you've messed up or how you should have approached certain things unless you just did something major. They're going to remember and cherish all the small moments. You know, they're gonna, you know, they're gonna remember, like I said, the love, the presence, and consistency. So, Uncle Rob, thank you for that. It's thank you for giving me that quote as something I have never forgotten, and it's something that I try my best to remember daily, and your guidance through all this has been amazing. Here's a conversation a lot of fathers have quietly with themselves, me being one of them. How do I take the good parts from my childhood without repeating the bad parts? Because whether we admit it or not, a lot of us grew up saying, When I become a dad, I'm going to do things differently. Maybe your father was distance, maybe he worked all the time, maybe he had a short temper. Maybe he did the best he could, but there were still things that stayed with you. And then one day you become a father, and suddenly you understand how hard life probably was for him, too. And that's the confusing part because you can love your dad and still be trying not to become him in certain ways. It's it's a weird emotional balancing act that nobody really honestly prepares you for. Sometimes I catch myself saying something exactly the way my dad would have said it, the same tone, the same reaction, the same frustration. And when that occurs, I think I beat myself up the hardest. And and and you know, after those things happen, immediately you start thinking, no, that's not how I want to be. And and reacting like you're your dad, that guilt hits differently because it feels different, it feels deeper than just a bad parenting moment. It feels generational almost. Like you're fighting patterns you inherited. And I think a lot of dads carry that silently. I really do. You know, trying to give their kids a softer childhood than the ones they had, trying to be more emotionally available, trying to be more patient, trying to break cycles while still learning how to parent in real time. And honestly, it's it's exhausting sometimes because nobody teaches you how to heal old wounds while also raising children. You're figuring out both at once. But I think there's something important and even trying. The effort matters, the awareness matters. Because maybe breaking generation generational patterns, I mean, it doesn't happen perfectly. Maybe, maybe it happens in small moments. The apology your father never gave, the hug, you know, your father never offered, the patience you choose, even when you're overwhelmed, that stuff matters to the kids. And maybe being a better father doesn't mean becoming a perfect man, but maybe it means becoming more of an intentional one. I struggle with everything we've talked about in this episode, especially the one about not trying to be like my father. My father and I, I'm gonna be honest, we didn't have a relationship. It was very verbally abusive, it was very physically abusive, and I struggled with that until I was in my 30s and I finally got help. One promise I made to myself when my daughter was born in 2007 was that I was never gonna react the way my dad reacted to things. And there are moments that I do. I've never touched my kids violently, I'm never gonna do that. But from the verbal standpoint, I raise my voice. I tend to yell. I'm an emotional person, highly over-emotional a lot of times. So I catch myself raising my voice and yelling, and I I hate that because I grew up in a home where there was a lot of yelling daily. And when I do it now, I'm breaking a promise to myself, and I'm also affecting my kids and teaching them how not to react in situations. And it's a daily struggle. I'm not perfect, and it's something that's going to take time. And if you're listening to this and you've been carrying guilt as a parent, I want I want to say this. Your kids do not need perfection, they need you. They need your time, your effort, your love, your consistency, your presence. The little moments matter more than we think they do. And honestly, half the time your kids probably think you're doing a way better job than you believe you are. So maybe tonight, instead of replaying every mistake, remember the good ones. Celebrate the small things, because they count probably more than the bad ones ever did. Thank you for hanging out with me on another episode of Mostly Me Occasionally Wise. If this episode hit home for you, share it with another dad who might need to hear it. You can follow the show, leave a review, and connect with us on the Mostly Me Occasionally Wise Facebook page. You can also reach out anytime at mostlyme contact at gmail.com. And remember, none of us really know what we're doing. We're just we're just trying to love our people the best way we can.