Parenting: The Mundane and the Magical

I have three small children - currently a 6 year old, a 3 year old and a 6 month old. They’re all the things small children are supposed to be.

I wanted to share a brief snapshot in time of why I think parenting is amazing. It’s a fleeting moment - the kind that I’ll forget about and just imbue into the overall ‘fabric’ of being a parent. That’s why I want to write this down, and part of the reason I’m doing this blog. I don’t want to forget the magical moments that’ll ultimately fade into the mundanity of everyday life.

Yesterday, my eldest boy burst through the front door after school and before I could even ask him “how was school?” he launched into a breathless monologue about Samuel Pepys and the Great Fire of London and the fact that Samuel Pepys’s diary had been written in a code that his own mother couldn’t decipher.

He was so excited, and even moreso when he found out that I didn’t know about the code and that he was actively teaching me something. The sheer joy. The wonder. Over a typical day at school.

And then later in the evening I mentioned that I was having somebody come and value the house. He was angry, and, as all good six year olds would, threatened to shoot our car with an arrow if I sold our house. He told me that “you can only sell the house if it is good for the whole family”.

I told him to calm down, and that “only doing things that are good for the whole family” is the main job of being a dad. My wife pitched in and said “Daddy always does what’s best for the family, because he loves us all.”

My son burst into tears, and flapped at my wife saying “Happy tears”.

He was crying because he loved his dad so much and was so happy that his dad always did what was best for the family.

Parenting is 95% mundanity and grind, but in every day, if you’re paying attention, there’s magic. Magic that you couldn’t achieve in a thousand years any other way.