So you’ve been doing the dad thing for a while, you work hard to provide for your family and in your mind everything is cool. The kids are good, they got everything they need. The wife seems happy, we’re doing the best we can. Or are you?

In this post we’re talking about family. And we’re focusing on the dad that’s been at this for a while. Maybe you’ve been married for some years now and you got a few kids, so you got experience. You might even consider yourself a seasoned Vet.

But I want you to ask yourself, what does that look like? What does a seasoned Veteran Dad look like? Do you get to that status when all the kids graduate from college? Is that the standard for success as a dad or is it when the kids move out? Or when they get married?

These are hard questions to answer and to be honest I’m still struggling with figuring this out and I just started this dad thing a few years ago, so what do I know right?

Well, here’s what I’ve learned so far.

Sometimes things are not as they seem.

In the case of my dad. He grew up poor in a small town in El Salvador and came over to the U.S. at about 20 years of age. He started working any job he could get and as many hours as he could. He got together with my mom and then I was born. 5 years later my brother came into the picture.

Now on the surface, growing up it looked like everything was cool. And I don’t know what prompted my dad to do this, but he ended up cheating on my mom and lo and behold I got the news that I had a baby sister.

I’ll never forget the day me and my brother got to meet her for the first time. He had sprung the news on us the night before that he had a daughter out of an affair. First time I had ever seen my dad weep while he told us what he had done. The very next day he was picking us up from school with a 3 year old baby girl in a car seat. My sister.

It was shocking at first but I was old enough already to know that it wasn’t her fault. So we hit up a McDonald’s and played with her, treated her like a baby sister. Still to this day I try to reach out to her when I can, would love to be closer to her, but she’s an adult now so I know she has her own life.

The thing that troubled me about my dad was that he thought everything was cool still. Hey I cheated on your mom, had another baby, I told you about her, you got to meet her and now it looks like everything is cool, right?

Nah man, it doesn’t work that way. You see in my dad’s eyes he thought what ever move he made whether it was wrong or not, he could figure out a way to bandage it up and duck tape it together to make it work somehow. He thought me and my brother were ok because we had clothes on our backs, a roof over our heads and food on the table. In his mind he was killing the dad game.

Yet he ignored the actual problem, like what caused him to cheat in the first place? What caused him to be away from us all the time? Choose gambling, strip clubs and alcohol over us?

This brings us to ...

Point #1

No matter how together you think you have it as a dad, you gotta check in on your  family.

You see all of this revolves around one thing...Influence.

Let me explain.

My dad was influenced by all the people he spent the most time with. He was with those people about 8-12 hrs a day at work and then when he would be off. He’d come home and sleep, watch tv, then bounce to spend more time with his friends.

All of whom were gamblers, heavy drinkers, and not to mention, cheaters. Imagine that, The majority of your time spent with that type of person and you believe you won’t  be influenced?

It happens to your kids too. They spend 8 hrs a day at school being influenced by teachers and other kids. And if they do extra curricular activities, like sports or something, that’s more time being influenced away from you.

And then parents wonder why kids are disobedient. I would argue that it’s because you only get them for a few hours a night. Let’s face it, You may not be the biggest influence in their lives. So it becomes your job to find out what is? On top of that whether it’s positive or negative? And if you come to find that it’s negative, can you be man enough to ask yourself, is it your fault?

And if it is...

Point #2

Can you own up to it? By checking in on yourself. And can you be honest about what’s actually influencing you?

If your typical day looks like you getting home from work, kicking off your shoes, eating dinner and watching tv the rest of the night. With minimal interactions with your family. Maybe some small talk here and there.

Or maybe it looks like a living room full of people with everyone on their phone checking social media? Or you waiting for everyone to fall asleep so you can play that video game you’ve been strategizing about all day at work?

Look I say these things because I’ve been there and I’ve seen it with a lot of dads.

You see as men, we have this conqueror mentality that when we accomplish something, we settle into it and think that the accomplishment will always be there.

For example, when you were dating your wife before you got married. You were probably doing all these things for her. Flowers, random gifts, surprise outings, anything you could do to wow her and make her feel special. Then you married her and inside you felt like King  Leonidas from 300.

But after you married her, you slowly stopped doing all that stuff that won her over and here you are many years later trying to figure out what to buy her for her birthday on the day of.

Same thing with kids, we’re so happy when they’re born and little by little we stop trying as hard to be a part of their lives because you think to yourself, they’re good, they don’t need me that much.

When this happens we start to lose our influence over our families? And if we don’t have influence, how can we ever expect them to follow us?

So you’re probably saying, G is it too late for me to influence my family?

Well the good news is that it’s never too late to start. Because it all begins with you.

Point #3

I would challenge you to start with small changes.

Really take the time to observe what’s going on in your household and make a note of what’s influencing your family. Don’t expect to be able to change those influences right away, but definitely start steering the boat in that direction.

Remember, we’re all influenced in one way or another, so if we’re gonna be influenced anyway, then why not make it positive.

Also, check to see what’s influencing you?

Is it your friends? TV, Social Media, Video Games, the News, or Vices?

Whatever it is, ask yourself, is it positive or negative? Does it give you the power to be a bigger and better influence on your family or does it cause you to lose your power like Superman around kryptonite?

Now don’t get me wrong I’m not saying that all of these things, like video games or watching a movie are horrible things. The problem only occurs when they become the most influential things in your life.

If my dad could’ve realized what his negative influences were, he could’ve changed things and would’ve had a lot more influence in our household. Instead my brother and I sought out that influence somewhere else.

Your family is a gift and they deserve the best of you. So don’t give them anything less.

Ask yourself.

What sort of influences do you have in your life right now that you know may need to change for the sake of your family?

Until next time my fellow Alpha Dad.

• G. Vidal