Daddy acting

I caught myself again the other day, walking away with a suppressed smile on my face – trying to conceal my true emotions – as I marched off from another ‘angry raised voice’ encounter with my 9 and 8 year olds.

I find myself doing this a lot more these days.

I was once a kid myself and I know all the tricks of the trade. You see, they rarely listen when I ask politely in a normal tone. They prefer to run rings around the ‘old man’ or pretend that they have suddenly suffered a mysterious bout of deafness when the request or task is not to their liking.

I am secretly amused by their cheeky rebellious ways, but still have to play the role of ‘strict daddy’ keeping them in line for their own safety and good.

So I have to bring my Oscar worthy acting skills to the game; putting on an angry face and raised voice to match.

It seems to be the only act that gets me an audience these days – pretend to be angry or be REALLY angry.

It seems my requests and ‘nudges’ need to be delivered at a high decibel volume and scowl to match!

… and the list (and acting) goes on and on.

Don’t get me wrong, I DO get angry and lose my rag many times (don’t judge me). But often, I am also just acting.

I am able to step out of myself, see the fun and funny side to this aspect of parenting before diving into the fray!

Secretly I entertain myself by psyching myself up to bring my best ‘angry raised voice’ daddy acting to the next encounter.

Problem though is that these two are pretty smart. I think they are catching on that angry daddy is more often an act than real.

I am going to need a new strategy soon … adoption perhaps – joking.