Walking the Walk

I used to love pro wrestling. One of my favorite wrestlers was “Nature Boy” Ric Flair. Besides being a great showman, he was known for creating great catch phrases.

One was: “If you’re gonna talk the talk, you better be able to walk the walk.”

This is a good credo for life, but it is mandatory for single parenting in the Dadhood.

When my three daughters and I began reorganizing our lives around the new theme of “Life in the Post-Mother World”, one of the first items on the agenda was establish a program for sharing household duties.

To this point, it had been a slip-shod affair at best that had degenerated into a form of indentured servitude. This produced a lot of resentment, usually in the form of daily loud and tearful protesting, and not just from me.

I realized, for the new regime to succeed, a new order had to be established.

First, I amended the “Do as I say, not as I do” edict to the simpler “Do as I do” and we began a rotating schedule of responsibilities to address the household jobs that, let’s face it, nobody likes to do but must get done.

And I became the point man in this new and daring social experiment.

Quickly, my daughters realized that Dad never shirked his turn, so they didn't either. They noticed that Dad never pled “Unfair!” when there were more dirty dishes or more dirty clothes on his watch than on theirs. It was just the luck of the draw. So the daily weeping and gnashing of teeth faded away. And they learned that if one was truly sick, the next in line would pick up the slack, yet it always, eventually, came out even in the end, so no one felt put-upon when they had to put out an extra effort.

Mostly they noticed that, with regular application of our duty schedule, there were always clean dishes, glasses and silverware when they were needed. There was always a ready supply of clean clothes. Even our two cats were happier because their litter box was well tended to and they showed their feline appreciation for this by not peeing in the girl’s sneakers anymore (well, less often, anyway).

And the cries of “Huzza!” and “Ain’t this Cool!” resounded throughout the Dadhood and there was much joy and festive dancing (to the Spice Girls, as I recall).

The most enduring benefit though, was a quiet one. My girls learned that teamwork was more than the abstract subject of a lecture and the secret of mutual support is keeping it mutual.

Yes, Dad talked the talk but he would always strive to walk the walk, so they could too (still do, proudly) and so our journey was made lighter for us all…