Being a father is easier when there is a “little platoon” around us.
That is a lesson I learned when my second son was born. Thankfully, there were men (and women) around who helped wrangle the firstborn so my wife could recover and spend time with our second son.
This Father’s Day, it is worth remembering the men who pitch in to make life a little easier on families in their communities.
“Part of what plagues our society is this lie that has been told to you that men are not necessary in the home or in our communities,” Harrison Butker, one of our great political philosophers, said recently. “As men, we set the tone of the culture, and when that is absent, disorder, dysfunction and chaos set in.”
“Disorder, dysfunction, and chaos,” is actually the slogan of having two children under 2 and a wife recovering from labor.
But there were men, at least 15 by my count, who helped keep the chaos to a minimum, even in the smallest ways, so I could get a few chores done, help my wife with the newborn, or just have a moment of sanity from running around all day.
There is one neighbor across the street who gave my son bread scraps to feed the geese and let him run around in his backyard, burning off energy.
My neighbor didn’t intend to make some grand gesture — he was just being kind. Another neighbor invited us over, and the children ran around in the backyard while I hung out with my friend. Other families helped out with meals, or in the case of my parents, had our son stay the night.
It does not take much. One friend, who is single, gave up an hour after work to come over and talk and just be there in case I needed to do something around the house. A lot can be done in an hour to straighten out the house and prepare for the next day. It did not take any special skill — I just needed one other adult there.
We are also fortunate to be tied to a community that values stay-at-home mothers.
A family from church watched our oldest son a handful of times, but it would have been hard to do if the mother had to work outside the home full-time. We benefited because the husband and wife both made sacrifices to structure their lives to prioritize her being at home with their children and ours.
Other fathers helped just by letting my son be thrown into their lives for a few hours, whether it was spending time with another neighbor with a son the same age, or going to a birthday party for a family friend who has six children.
Even another neighbor, a man in his 90s, provided some needed company as he let us pick tomatoes from his garden. My father-in-law and my brother-in-law helped out in various ways, too, just by being around.
Another father, on paternity leave in anticipation of his own second child coming, gave up a few hours to hang out at the local park with his daughter and my son.
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Some simple company is all it can take to keep normalcy and sanity amid the chaos.
What it takes to be a good father and man is not any extraordinary skill, but it often starts just by being there, in the home, in the community, and for our neighbors.
Matt Lamb is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is an associate editor for the College Fix and has previously worked for Students for Life of America and Turning Point USA.