That’s part of it. I tell my kids all the time, I’m just a guy. I tell them I don’t have all the answers, but I can find them if I put some effort in. I tell them I make mistakes, and that sometimes I’ll do bad dad stuff. I understand this about my parents as well. I still value their input because I’m sure they felt the same way I do, but somehow we made it out the other side, and so I’m interested in hearing their experience on the journey.

I’m fortunate to live in a fairly dense piece of suburbia, we have six or seven other families on the street with similar aged kids, and so I get to observe the rest of my peers, their strengths and their foibles, and we talk about it. It’s okay to mess up, just gotta take responsibility.

And as always, just go out there and have fun.