In some situations I think my kids are in luck with me for a father, and other I think they've gotten the short end of the stick. I can't teach them how to drive a stick shift car, for instance, and I've told them point blank that they're going to have to teach themselves how to fish. I'm pretty awful with tools and I can't teach them to dance (though fortunately they've inherited the boogie gene from their maternal grandfather, who was a dancing machine). 

As far as the abstractions go, I'm also a mixed bag as a father. Anger management hasn't been one of my traditional strong suits. I tend to bury my anger and use it against myself, which is terribly unhealthy. One of the biggest challenges in this Sisyphean project called fatherhood will be to teach my kids how to deal constructively with anger as I'm learning it myself. The answer is a mystery to me. I mean, what else can you do with anger than 

BURY IT AND 

HOPE IT NEVER REAPPEARS?

Isn't it the safest thing to do with anger, bury it beneath one's own skin? Use it to harm the self so that you don't use it to harm others? 

No, I'm a terrible dad to have in terms of learning anger management and––a more appropriate term, I think––anger processing. Having watched my father's rage at the roofer's union boil over into violence, and having clogged my own arteries with anger for decades, I'm a bad example. My worst option, when I see my kids getting angry, is to follow my instincts, because they will just make me mad at the kids. The better option will be to say 

Let's talk about how you deal with this feeling

and try to learn a little something on the way. If I can keep my mind open, this is one of the arenas in which my children can teach me. 

1. ROCKS AT THE FENCE
2. THE LACROSSE BALL INCIDENT
3. DISCIPLINE AND PUNISH