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Because my ex-wife and I are cordial, I was invited over to her house for dinner to mark the occasion. Before we sat down to eat, Cia locked the dog in a room. During dinner, and unbeknownst to all of us, the puppy also made a meal of the bottom of the wooden doorframe.
I chased the dog around the house. Cia chased me. I told Cia to get me a rolled-up piece of newspaper. She kept repeating, No, Papa! No, Papa!
The pursuit ended in Cias bedroom, me with the newspaper baton at the ready and explaining that the dog needed to register the punishment with the event, the dog cowering in a corner, and Cia finally crying out, No, Papa! Thats not the way you raised me!
I left the room. I cried. I came back. I apologized. And I learned an important lesson that day: A good father shuts up.
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My father had a voice that could stop anyonedog, human, horsedead in their tracks. It was loud and booming and it was a weapon, if he chose to employ it. Ive tried my very hardest not to yell as a father, which sometimes is in direct conflict with me trying to help raise four (yes, four) independent and powerful girls.
But the Puppy Incident proved to me that I could still be threatening and dictatorial even if I wasnt yelling. What I should have been then was silent.
My daughters are now all grown, and although Im no longer tempted to raise my voice at them, I am tempted to interject in their life decisions my opinions, suggestions, and general advice.
Instead, I presented them with an offer: Come to New Mexico, where I was filming Breaking Bad and am still filming Better Call Saul, and hike with me in the foothills of the San Andres Mountains.
Its so quiet there that I am forced into silence. The sky is huge. The peaks tower, unmoving. Everything is still.
On those hikes, I dont say anything. I wait, and, inevitably, my daughter will ask me a question and well talk. Ill ask her questions back. I rarely give advice unless solicited. What often results is a lot of me listening, hardly any of me talking, and almost always a sincere Thank you from one of my daughters.
This last fact is always amazing to me. As a father, I thought that, like my mother and father, I had to be direct and powerful to have an effect on my children as a parent. My mother used to say: Do as I say, not as I do. My version: Do as I do, which is not to overdo.