Riley’s lesson in fatherhood

Riley couldn’t stand to be alone with me for at least three solid months after we first adopted him. Riley happens to be a dog, by the way. We don’t know exactly why, but we suspect he had some bad experiences with men before he became part of our family.

I remember one morning, I was feeding Riley before work. At the recommendation of a friend, I had been in the habit of feeding Riley from his bowl with my hand. Apparently, that’s a technique used by handlers of military and police dogs (or something like that) that builds trust between the dog and their partner.

This particular morning, Riley was refusing to eat. He wouldn’t eat anything from my palm. I distinctly remember, I was on the linoleum floor in the kitchen of our tiny apartment, literally on my hands and knees, trying to coax Riley to eat. Dude wouldn’t budge.

And so we sat there. 5 minutes went by, then 10, and 15. Maybe even 20 minutes had passed. I was fuming because Riley was refusing to eat and I needed to hop in the shower to avoid being late for work. And yet, nothing. Kid wouldn’t eat, and would just point his snout in the opposite direction, rebuffing my offer of kibble for breakfast. I was losing my mind, and getting progressively angrier.

When I was at my wit’s end, I had this idea. What if I “spoke Riley’s language” and growled and howled at him. I figured that if I showed enough aggression, it might startle him into eating - you know, put him on the defensive.

In retrospect, this was obviously a terrible idea and a horrible approach to even contemplate. Looking back on it, I can’t believe I even tried it, because it’s obviously callous. Unsurprisingly, it had no effect. Riley still wouldn’t eat.

And during this excruciatingly stupid experiment, I had an epiphany. I realized that I couldn’t control Riley. Even though he was a dog, and even though I had pretty much all the real power in our relationship, I literally couldn’t control him - I couldn’t make him eat.

But in addition to not having the ability to control Riley, I realized that I didn’t want to control Riley. Because as I growled and got in Riley’s face on our kitchen floor, I realized that to control Riley, I might have to go the distance. I might have to make him submit to me. I might have to get in his face for weeks. I might have to yank his collar and threaten him or shame him with persistence. Because in Riley’s case, I knew he wouldn’t budge easily; it was clear his issues with men were deep-rooted.

To control him, I realized, I might put myself on a slippery slope that started with a desire for obedience but ended in physical or emotional abuse. Because if Riley kept refusing food, for example, I’d have to increase the intensity of whatever control tactic I was using. And if I had to exert dominance to control him for something like food, some other behavior of obedience was probably next. And then, what would be there to stop me from crossing the line from control to abuse?

The alternative, I decided in that moment, while I was literally hand-feeding Riley on my knees in our apartment, was to treat Riley as an equal. Not equal in the sense that he was a peer - after all, I do have a duty and responsibility to take care of and raise Riley - but as someone worth of equal treatment and respect.

Which is a radically different perspective, especially for a dog. And it looks really different to raise and care for a dog if I’m trying to treat him with equal respect, rather than trying to control him. In practice, it meant that I had to earn his trust to eat from my hand, rather than trying to bully him into it. I had to be incredibly consistent with trying to calm him down on walks in the neighborhood rather than yanking him around on his leash every time he stopped to smell a rock or chase a squirrel.

As is said by Mary Poppins, in the iconic film, I had to be “always firm, but never cross.” And that takes tremendous patience, nudging, trust, and self-control. And honestly, everything takes so much longer when you’re actively trying not to control him. And it took months to even get Riley to show any signs of progress or positive feeling toward me.

And, if I’m being transparent - there have been lots of  times since that morning in the kitchen where I’ve exploded at Riley and regressed into this dynamic where I utilize control tactics instead of tactics governed by the principles of equal treatment and respect. 

And I don’t how it would’ve turned out if I had kept trying to control him, but Riley and I do have a great relationship now - he trusts me and I trust him.  Everyday is still a challenge (especially when the mail carrier shows up in the middle of a Zoom call), but it’s okay that our relationship is still a work in progress.

The lesson from all this has been profound, as I’ve become a father to our sons. I realized the situation with Riley was more generalizable: if I want to control anyone’s behavior - Riley’s, our sons’, my colleagues’, my wife’s or anyone else - it might require me to abuse them at some point. Which leaves me with a choice: try to control someone and risk crossing a line, or, let go of wanting to control them in the first place.

But actively choosing not to control someone is difficult, as any parent would probably attest. When our sons are yelling at me, kicking me, and sometimes literally trying to spit in my face, I want to control them so that they stop. When we’re late to go somewhere, I want to control them so that they pick up the pace. At these high-pressure times It’s really hard to treat them as an equal, because it’s honestly incredibly inconvenient to do so. Having control of them would be so much easier!

And this approach of treating my sons as my equal is incredibly hard, for a few reasons. For one, sometimes my children need me to take control of a difficult situation because they’re too young to assess or handle the consequences of their actions. And controlling a situation and controlling them is a slippery slope in and of itself. But perhaps more so, I feel like I’ve been programmed to control my kids, not treat them as equals. The language and concepts our culture uses around children reinforces obedience and control. We’re expected not to have our kids throw tantrums in public. We use the words “mommy” and “papa” in the third person which reinforces the positional, hierarchical relationship between parent and child, at least somewhat. And in the back of my mind there’s always this simmering pressure of wanting my kids to be “successful” so they can earn a living and be independent someday, yes, but also because I know my children are a reflection on me. So yes, I feel like there are cultural tailwinds that encourage me to “control” our children.

But that experience on the floor trying to growl Riley into eating his breakfast left a lasting impression in my mind. I can’t shake the thought that control over someone else might require abusing them, in some way, eventually. And so I’m trying to imagine, “if I parented our sons not as peers but still as equals, what would that look like?” I’m still trying to figure it out, but it’s involved a lot of “I messages”, candor, patience, and transparency.

And honestly, I’m still really terrible at this approach to parenting. I slip into control-freak mode often with Bo and Myles, especially when we’re around hot frying pans, vehicular traffic, and sharp objects. But I think it’s worth it to keep trying. 

Because what happens when they’re adults if all I’ve done their whole lives is try to control what they do? They’ll eventually have the freedom to make their own choices, would they know how to handle that freedom if I’ve stolen the chance for them to explore it their whole lives? I feel like I owe it to them to try, and fail my way through it. Hopefully, someday I’ll get it right.