I am writing this article one week after our oldest daughter started getting sick, which quickly spread into every child, and if any of you parents have ever dealt with a fire-team of sick kids, it’s no fu$king joke. Incessant whining, begging, crying, and pickiness topped with a serving of sleeplessness and snot. It’s been a tough week. I understand that people try and try and try to have babies and aren’t able to while others endure stillbirths, failed adoption attempts, and on and on and I am very sorry for them. However, having a bunch of kids basically strips any amount of freedom, independence, and quiet from the parent. I don’t mean to sound bitchy, whiney, or privileged- but this was written during a challenging time of parenting.

Everything changed after our first child was born. Time and life seemingly slowed down as my fast-paced schedule turned into a stream of poopy diapers, baby baths, naps, and doing anything necessary to support my lactating wife and crying baby. An innate desire to provide for the child and mother enveloped me and I quickly metamorphosed from a solitary man who wanted nothing more than to be a world-famous author into a man whose soul purpose was to provide healthy food, warm shelter, and a firm bedrock of security for a growing family.

When the second child was born, the desire to provide doubled. And with the double came more anxiety and desperation to provide more and more and MORE! More food and money meant more work at home for little pay and more work away for more than a little. I tried to find a balance between life and work but all I could do was work; I had convinced myself that Man was made to work while Woman was made to nurture the children. And even though I knew that misconception was false, I justified it by working endless hours while the kids begged Daddy to play.

And then the twins were born… And while I thought that parenting two children was challenging, the challenge was again doubled within minutes!

I once believed that twins would be easy after having two kids already, it was another case of wrong-thinking. Having two toddlers (5 & 3) who constantly beg for attention, shout for play-time, scream at each other, yell at us parents, demand food and water, push us to the limits of every emotion every day, and then go to sleep at night in their own beds alone only to beg Mommy or Daddy to sleep with them in the middle of the night. Well, let’s just say that it’s not easy to have twins with toddlers. No sir, no way. There is nothing easy about it.

The twins cry from the ground, they cry from their cribs, they cry from the hearth and the first stair and under the table; they wail from the dog’s bowl as they choke on kibble and then scream from the double stroller, the baby carrier and the grass. The twins cry and cry and cry and all I can think is, “HOLY SHIT WHAT THE HELL DID I GET MYSELF INTO!?”

Having twin babies is no joke. But at the end of the day, when all four kids are asleep and my dear Savanna and I have an exhausted hour alone to reflect on the day, we laugh about the craziness of our life. But in the heat of battle, when the toddlers are demanding food that they cannot make, and all we want to do is give them cereal for the seventh time that day but we know it’s not right, and the babies wail because one has a shitty diaper and the other wants to eat, and then a neighbor calls to see if I can help with some free work while I’m looking at our website’s statistics and wondering how the hell we can make more money on here, and I’m hungry and my dear Savanna is hungry– it’s hard not to lose it. Sometimes I explode on everybody!

And then the beckon of Capitalism, Humanism, and Whateverism repeats in my head: More…More…More would fix it… More money would build a bigger house, it would buy you vacations, it would pay for eating out a couple of times a week… You could pay a cleaner… How do I get more money? More work… More work, more work, more work! We need more money. How much more? There is never enough!. or Go someplace and it will all change… To a beach where you could relax… A city with parks… A town with playgrounds… Near family… To go means Money, money, and more money…

And then I start getting pissy at my dear wife, Savanna, and at my beautiful children- who beg Daddy to play all day every day but Daddy is always too busy to even wrestle because I’m obsessed with making an unlimited amount of money, so I take it out on the poor kids by being short-tempered, hella mean, demeaning, and distant. I don’t answer them, I walk away as they cry from the playground, I say, “Don’t bother me!” or “Get out of my way!” or “Don’t you know that Daddy has to work!” or “You don’t understand!” The list of mean things I say goes on and on, all while convincing myself that I’m doing a good job as a father because I’m not yelling and I’m not working a 9-5 job away from the family and putting all of that pressure on my wife to raise the kids herself, or am on the slope for weeks at a time, or on a boat for months at a time. No, what I do is stay at home and work 12-16 hour days, 7 days a week, while earning a wage that would be laughed at by Dave Ramsey and his team of bullies. Well below poverty, no doubt.

I’m not writing this to get pity, sympathy, or compassion. I’m writing this to say that parenting twin babies is damn hard. When I leave the house for more than two hours, all hell breaks loose on the home front. When Savanna leaves the house for two hours– oh wait, she doesn’t do that! Who am I kidding?

Somebody once said that parenting brings out the best and worst in a person. Whoever said that should receive a Nobel Prize for Wisdom. Sometimes it feels like only my bad sides come out and the downward spiral of self-pity looks like an enticing waterpark where I can hop on a rollercoaster of shame and guilt to ride all day. Why not just yell and scream and demean them all, you’ve already done it once or twice today- fu$k it!

Two months ago I was a guest on the Cleared Hot Podcast with Andy Stumpf for the second time (where I made myself look like a complete dipshit! Look in the Books section of our website to see the video for a good laugh at my expense!) I asked Andy how he chooses to stay put and fight as a parent rather than runaway, and he basically said that running away is not an option. That no matter what, we as parents, have to stay and fight for our kids because that is the only option we have.

And I thought about my father and how he ran away, and so many other male family members who have runaway from their kids and familial responsibilities, and so many Dads and husbands who turn and run from the crying, the sleeplessness, the dependence, the fears, the tears, the arguments, the anxieties, the dishes, the endless laundry, the whiny voices begging for food, the eyes always watching and learning, the responsibilities, and the wife’s emotions. And I wonder why more of those guys don’t think the way Andy Stumpf does? What made them run?

Some men run away by buying a one way bus pass across country. Others cheat on their spouses and blame them for not providing sex. Some run away in a bottle and a joint and spend their days off work hiding in the garage or watching two screens at once, their phone and the football game. Others run away by working 12 hour days 7 days a week at home, too busy to play. Are you running away from your family?

Full time parenting is the greatest challenge I have ever faced, and the most important. And while I need to take breaks, I have to be careful not to use my breaks as a way to escape until eventually I, too, am running away. Because I believe that my kids are a lot better off if with a present father, and many other kids would have better lives if their dad was there too.

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