MICHAEL USHER: Perfect parenting is a myth but this experience made me realise we’re all doing OK

I’ve had the benefit this past week of a few days off to celebrate a mate’s birthday, ditch the razor, slightly mess up my TV hair, and tune out. Well, sort of tune out. Going cold turkey on the daily fix of news is not easily done after too many years addicted to information, but what a few days away did for me was compartmentalise the work part of my brain and lock all that up in a mental storage unit and unlock the more important cupboards. The very full and overflowing cupboards that hold all the guilt, responsibility, memories, joy and long to-do lists of being a parent.

It’s easy to shove all that away sometimes and auto-parent. There simply isn’t time to clean out that cupboard, chuck out what’s not needed, organise the important space, and make a bit of room for new shared memories and growth with your children and family.

So, I spent a bit of time letting that mental cupboard explode and tried to release a few mind traps. Stupid negative thoughts, guilt and unrealistic expectations get you nowhere as a parent. But they easily take over. However, I did give myself a six out of 10 as a dad this year. The juggle and struggle have been real in 2024, and frankly it hasn’t been great in the dad stakes. So, with almost four months to go, I’m aiming to get that score to a solid eight out of 10.

Why not aim for 10 out of 10? Ridiculous. And any parent who reckons they’re a 10 is hiding dark secrets. Besides, what child wants a perfect parent? Who are they going to hate or rebel against? It’s your job, at certain points of their adolescent life, to be the completely horrible opposite of them. It makes them feel better. And saves them from being muppets to their teachers or anyone else trying to steer them through their transition those awkward years.

Turns out my six out of 10 parenting year isn’t uncommon. On return from a few days off, I was invited last night to speak at my daughter’s school which had organised an excellent fathers forum.

Just four of us on stage and an audience of school dads jibbering on about our shared experiences and being the fathers of young women and girls.

The very clever teacher who organised this gets to see our girls during school hours, but he was very keen to hear and have us share experiences of our daughters out of hours.

There were some broad topics such as technology, social media, friend groups, parties, drinking. You know, all the stuff that separately or together can make a young kid’s life hell, and torment parents.

The shared experiences among the dads were enlightening, and I think probably made a few of us six out of 10 parents feel like we’re doing OK. There were the dads who’d seen it all before and had a much more relaxed, and optimistic view of parenting.

Their older daughters had weathered the worst of teen life, fallen off the rails a few times, and come out fine in senior years.

There were the younger dads with kids still in primary school more worried, rightly, about the appropriate age or time to give their daughter a mobile phone.

And probably me in the middle, trying to navigate a 16-year-old daughter through the right choices before her final two years of senior school.

A few things were clear though. Mobile phone or screen addiction is a real thing that occupies a lot of parenting time and mostly failed discipline.

Social media apps and the pressure or bullying that comes through them terrifies every parent. We could only agree that values, and teaching right and wrong, were the only weaponry we had here, because the social media giants have been too slow to help parents close the dark back doors on their platforms.

And when it comes to policing my daughter’s use of her mobile phone or laptop, I conceded a parenting failure. Bit hard to be the sergeant-major of tech discipline, when you’re delivering the lecture with your own mobile phone in hand constantly pinging for my attention.

I’ve let her now set boundaries for how much digital is in her diet, and luckily a pretty full roster of dance, drama and sport keeps her away from devices for enough time for it all to be manageable.

Drinking and parties? Another big concern. I’m still holding the line on that one. It’s a no from this dad and my daughter has raised it again only recently. She asked if it was possible because “all the other girls are”.

Look, I’m not naïve to think she isn’t drinking or hasn’t at least tried, but if she is she’s keeping it under control in this regard, I have boundaries.

Wading into any conversation around parenting comes with some judgment, sadly. And I’m not here to preach, just share.

That’s exactly what we did last night among a group of dads all navigating the same waters but trying to avoid the sandbanks just beneath the calm surface. It was good to hear about other experiences. It was even better to be in the room talking about the things that really matter.

So I can now pack a few new father thoughts back in that cupboard, which is now a little less cluttered and a lot more clear.

I’d better shave next because apparently the bosses don’t like beards on the 6pm news. As for the six out of 10 score on the dad report card? Maybe it’s really a seven.

I’ll work on it. But after talking with the other dads last night, I reckon we’re all just trying our best.