If I Had a Hammer

Mar 06 | Tony | No Comments |

If I had a hammer, I‘d hammer in the morning. I’d hammer in the evening… all over this land…

Or more accurately:

All I have is a hammer. I hammer in the morning. I hammer in the evening… over this land…

I have sneaking suspicions that there are a LOT of dads out there who have inherited hammers as their parenting tool of choice.  Every now and then, it feels like I am still swinging a 9-pound hammer around the room. And that is after a lifetime of introspection, hard work, and the melting down of all sorts of hammers, and the forging of new tools. (Funny how hammers still keep popping up just when I thought I had found them all!)

If you are one of the guys whose parenting tool shed consists of One Big Hammer, (and a wing and prayer) then you already have three very important pieces of information:  (1) That is how you were parented, (2) This is your inheritance, and (3) This is where the work begins if you want to do something different with your child(ren) and/or partner.

The convenient thing about a hammer is that it is pretty easy to use. Just grab and swing. It’s not rocket science. Hammers pass easily from generation to generation, and you can take them with you wherever you go. The good news is that you can use them on just about everything and everyone, and in most situations.

Even when you don’t know what to do, you can always just pull it out and start pounding. Many of us get so good at it that we don’t even have to think about it anymore. We live on autopilot just swinging away. But hey, at least it looks like you are doing something! It sure feels like you are doing something. And at the end of the day, you can always say, “It’s not my fault. I have been pounding on that thing (or that person) for years. I did the best I could. I did my job. That’s the way it was done when I was growing up.”

But what is a guy supposed to do with his hammer now that something totally different is being asked of him on all fronts? Dads are now being asked to play nicely in the sandbox: to be patient, loving, insightful, present, intuitive, gentle, supportive, attentive, sensitive, wise, communicative, non-defensive, soft, warm, kind, sharing, open, giving, etc.  I don’t know about you, but that looks like a mighty tall order, especially if all you got to do it with is a hammer. Bang, bang! Clang, clang! Wham, wham!

It feels like I can’t do any of that other stuff with just a hammer. Maybe it’s time for John Henry to put his hammer down, and quit driving spikes (into people’s heads). The work of everyman is to tend his own hot fire, to throw his hammer into it, and begin the melting and re-forging process. Over and over again, until he has created for himself a master craftsman’s set of tools for all sorts of situations and instances. And he must practice with his tools until they become as musical instruments in his hands, and he a virtuoso.

This is very hard work. Indeed, it is a lifetime’s worth of work. And that, my friend, is a mighty inheritance to pass down to one’s children. A shed full of parenting tools! It is not the gold of this world (which can bankrupt on the inside), but the alchemical gold (which forever enriches) that is passed down from generation to generation. Smelted anew each day in the fires of family life, while trying to raise your children with your eyes wide open.

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