Father’s Day notes from the field | GUEST COMMENTARY

As the father of two boys, and with twins on the way, I’m cashing in my Father’s Day chip to share some unsolicited thoughts on the rewards of being called “Dad.”

I’ll start with one of its most unexpected and wonderful gifts: time travel. I’m starting to gray and lose hair, crows’ feet fan out around my eyes, and my joints could use some WD-40, but I get to relive cherished parts of my own childhood with my kids, and that keeps me young.

When my boys break out the Legos, I jump right in. They get called to lunch. I keep building. My castle is impenetrable.

There’s also Monopoly, match, Trouble, checkers, chess and re-reading Roald Dahl and “Calvin and Hobbes.” I may be worse at basketball than I’ve ever been, but playing against my 5-and-7-year-old, I’m also better at basketball than I’ve ever been.

As your kids develop their own interests, you also pick up hobbies you may have missed out on during your maiden voyage through childhood. For example, my boys have taken to piano and golf. I never played a musical instrument — never thought I was capable of it — but their interest sparked my own. While I won’t be playing Chopin’s Nocturne 8 in D flat anytime soon, I’ll be darned if you hear a more spirited version of The Chattanooga Choo-choo. And with time, practice, and a couple thousand dollars worth of lessons, I may yet become a terrible golfer.

Parenthood is also fertile soil for self-improvement. Your kids look up to you and wholeheartedly trust that you are perfectly kind, wise, generous, and loving. You may be somewhere between 40-60% of those things, but their belief is so pure and earnest that you strive to meet it, and end up closing the gap between who you are and who they believe you to be. Before you know it, you’ve become a better version of yourself. When someone says “My kids saved me” or “My kids made me a better person,” that’s what they mean.

Finally, we often talk about parenting as an act of imparting wisdom to our kids, but my experience is that they are already plenty wise. In fact, we should be learning from them. Because let’s face it: they’re better than us.

By factory setting, their instincts are pure and unimpeachable. They are fixated on fairness, blind to race or creed. They don’t give a hoot about social status, salaries, cars, houses, or fancy vacations. They talk to Democrats and Republicans, and even those Kennedy kooks. Above all, they just want to spend time with you, and eat ice cream.

It’s widely held that being a parent complicates life, and boy does it ever — if you fight it. If you go full archaeologist and strive to dig up the relics of your past life (me-time, hobbies, dates, restaurants, easy road trips, conversations) you’ll become endlessly frustrated and resentful when all your attempts are inevitably foiled simply because that is no longer your life. Firsthand experience.

If you don’t fight it, but instead go with the flow and embrace all the wonderful things about your new life — nurturing a deeper connection with another human than you ever thought possible, having a front-row seat to watching a child become who they are — it greatly simplifies things. At the end of the day, you always know where your priorities lie.

So here’s to fatherhood, and parenting in general. It makes you old, but it keeps you young. It makes you better. It teaches you what’s important. Never mind the exploding diapers; ‘tis a most noble calling. All things considered, it’s a pretty good deal. Actually, it’s a great deal. Happy Father’s Day.

Zach Przystup (zprzystup@gmail.com) works for the Fulbright Program at the U.S. Department of State.