Dads in the Limelight
Our 382nd Dad in the Limelight is Beau Coffron. I want to thank Beau for being a part of the Dads in the Limelight series. It has been great getting connected with him and now sharing him with all of you.
1) Tell me about yourself, (as well as how you are in the limelight for my readers knowledge)
I first and foremost am a husband and a father. I have two kids with another on the way. Other than that I work full-time with high school students but am in the limelight for my blog, lunchboxdad.com. For the past year I have been making fun and creative lunches for my daughter to take to school every Monday. The project grew into a blog (where I post pictures and recipes for parents to follow). This has helped me to connect with my daughter in amazing ways and I want to help other parents do the same. I also just finished my first ebook, Adventures in Lunchboxing. It shares a number of lunches, recipes, and ideas not available on my blog.
2) Tell me about your family
I have been married for 12 years. My wife and I met in college our freshman year, but I couldn’t convince her to date me until we were seniors. We have a 7-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son. My wife is due in January with our third child. We are generally a pretty normal family (if there is such a thing) with our normal disagreements, fun memories, and bedtime meltdowns.
3) What has been the largest challenge you have had in being a father?
I think its learning how really selfish I am. Marriage was a good primer for that. Being a father, though, that’s a completely different ballgame. I never thought of myself as being selfish, but when you are learning how to care for someone who is completely dependent on you, it shows you no matter what, it is about them first. I still get my down time, but that first year being a dad was a learning experience. Well on second thought maybe it’s getting every bodily fluid known to man on you, sometimes all at once. No…I’ll still go with the selfishness lesson.
4) What advice would you give to other fathers?
Be present in the moment. I am so busy that sometimes I miss out on experiences because my attention is divided. When you are with your kids, actually be with them. I was wrestling with my son tonight and realized that I hadn’t done that in awhile. Its not the wrestling, it’s the connection time. This is a struggle for me. So often, I say, “In a minute” or “maybe later.” The problem is that later turns into, well…much later. We as dads miss the important moments. So now how busy you are, put the laptop down, put the phone down, and be a dad, if only for a few minutes. Let your kids interrupt you from time to time to show them how important they are to you.
5) Seeing that you (or your position) are in the limelight, how have you come to balance parenthood and outside life? If you are currently not in the limelight per se, please still answer this in regards to how you balance parenthood and outside life.
The hard thing is that with my full-time job, I am in the limelight locally quite a bit. I work many nights and weekends. For my blog, I am in the limelight online. Its easy to never turn things off. However, my wife is a great truth-teller in my life. When I don’t see things getting out of balance, she does and will call me on it. There are obviously seasons when things will be busier but I need to make sure that’s not all the time. This means I have to say no to things. I used to say yes to everything, but as I matured I realized that when I say yes to everything else, I say no to my family. My family comes first, not my job or my blog.
6) What have you learned from the fathers that you have interacted with?
I learn not only how to be a great dad, but also how not to mess up as well. I try and learn lessons no matter where I go or whom I come into contact with. I am a firm believer that even if your role models for being a dad were terrible (I had a mixed bag), you can take something from them and apply them to your own life. So the biggest thing I have learned is to try and learn how to (or how not to) be a dad with whomever I meet. I can take little things here and there, apply them to my family and make them great learning experiences. There are no perfect parents. I’m certainly not, so I will be a lifelong learner. We should never think we have it altogether and can stop learning. We never stop being dads so we should always be trying to be better at it.
7) What else would you share regarding your experiences as a father thus far?
Even though I get frustrated with my kids to the point of wanting to pull my hair out, I would never trade them for the world. There is nothing like being a dad. If I could do it all over again, I would want the same experiences without even giving it a second thought.
8) What have been the most memorable experiences that you have had thus far as a parent?
One would be holding my oldest for the first time in the hospital and thinking that life would never be the same…and “Crap, I have no idea what I am doing!” Another would be watching them grow up and accomplish things that would probably bore other parents, but I think are amazing. For example, my daughter made it up a legit climbing wall three times the other day. She is not the best at sports, my son is the athlete, but she did it and I was so proud of her. Its those little things that make being a dad worth it.
If you have any questions for Beau, please leave a comment here and I will make sure that he gets them so that he may be able to respond!
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