Welcome to A Father’s Voice for March 2008. Having to Step It Up A Notch is my realization that I may be an involved father, but there was still quite a bit I didn’t know.

A Father’s Voice is my chance to share my voice with you about the challenges and rewards I experience trying to be a very involved father while having to work full-time away from our home. I write during the only disposable time of my day – my train ride to and from home.

Having to Step It Up A Notch 

By Jeremy G. Schneider, MFT

I always believed, as involved fathers go, I was pretty high up there if you were to grade my level of involvement. As soon as I walk in the door from work, I herd our almost 5-year old children to the dinner table, sometimes even remember to set it, too. We talk about their day, I give them their medicines and vitamins. I get them changed into their pajamas, take them to the bathroom, and even take them to bed five nights a week. When they wake up in the middle of the night upset, I’m the one they call. On the weekends, I spend almost every moment I can with them, even often having special time with them, just the three of us. I have even spent entire weekends just the three of us when my wife has gone away. I couldn’t imagine how I could be more involved, to be honest.

Well, I am learning, now that my wife has started working full-time, that there was a whole area of their life I was not at all involved in; their school.

My wife, Gem, stayed home to be with our kids after they were born and it was easily the best decision we made in terms of our children. Who better to be with them than someone who has the most incredible capacity for unconditional love of anyone I have ever met? During the first couple of years when they didn’t have school she spent all day with them and I really felt it was my job when I walked in the door to try and take over some of the primary parenting roles so she could get a little break. Of course, my getting involved also served to build a strong relationship with my children – something we both felt strongly about.

Leaving every morning was very hard for me – and for some time hard on my kids – and I learned when I walked out the door to put them in a special corner of my mind so I wouldn’t feel too guilty about leaving and could focus on work during the day. When our kids started going to preschool, I had very little to do with it. Gem would take them every morning, pick them up every afternoon, and when I got home I got to hear how their day went. I was not involved, because it wasn’t necessary or really at all possible for me to be involved. I couldn’t take them to school without showing up to work two hours late and couldn’t pick them up from school if I went to work. My lack of involvement in school meant that I didn’t know what was involved in them going to school.

You can hear A Father’s Voice in my voice below, subscribe to A Father’s Voice podcasts, check out A Father’s Voice archives, read the rest of this month’s column, and even subscribe to Two Okapis, my Digital Daddy Diary. You can always share your voice with me by commenting on this site or emailing me.