You’re going to screw up.

And you’ll definitely feel like a bad dad because of it

This morning I was trying to finally trim down the daggers that my son’s fingernails had become. It was something that I was a bit nervous about doing, and had put off, but we had the tiny nail clippers and all, so it was bound to be fine.

It wasn’t.

I made it through one hand successfully, my confidence rising. With the new and somewhat awkward angle of his second hand, I promptly sliced right through his thumb rather than his fingernail.

Fuuuuuuuuuck.

There’s no feeling quite like watching your newborn baby bleed and scream and cry while knowing that that was 100% your fault.

If I had to try to nail the feeling down, it would probably swim in a fishbowl alongside the others that come from running over a dog with your car, having food poisoning and puking all over your friend’s new white couch, or being the only one in the first-grade class who didn’t finish their homework and lost the class their pizza party so they’re all now glaring at you.

Those things, plus a little, times ten. Now you’re in the ballpark.

And then I’m left there, totally unable to console my baby as he cries, having the guilt flood over me.

It wasn’t pretty.

But that’s the thing about parenting. I’m only three weeks in, and I’ve already fucked up to the point of almost maiming my baby in my attempts to help him out.

You’re going to fuck up.

You’re going to feel like you’re a bad dad.

And that’s okay.

It means you care.

What matters is what you do about it.

There’s this thing about guilt. Your brain convinces you more and more that you should keep feeling like shit.

If you let yourself get into a downward spiral, it’s only going to lead to more shame, anger, and more opportunities to show up like the bad dad that you currently feel you are.

The first thing you need to do, almost immediately, is forgive yourself.

This is just a simple recognition of the fact that we can’t be perfect, we’re going to mess up, but we also need to learn from this.

What makes a bad dad is the refusal to step up when you fuck up and do something real about it.

And just so you know, forgiving does not equal forgetting.

Forgiving is allowing yourself to move past the guilt and take the lesson in stride while taking real action to show up better.

Forgetting is doing nothing about it and pretending you’re okay while the real emotions pack tight into a bottle that will one day explode all over you and your family.

Self-forgiveness is a lot easier said than done, but that’s no excuse.

I stared, dead inside, as my partner sucked on my son’s bleeding thumb and fed him to calm him down. I did nothing. There was nothing I could do. Self-forgiveness was far, far from my mind.

But after taking a beat, I realized that if I let myself sit in the shame of having hurt my child, then I pull myself away from him even more. If I don’t forgive myself and maintain my active presence in his caretaking, I will hurt him even more in a different way.

Looking back on it and writing about it, my stomach still clenched when I replay the moment in my head. I still feel the guilt. I will still be terrified of trimming his nails in the future. But I also know that he and I can only really get over this by me continuing to show up for him in each and every way possible.

Dads, I know it’s so easy to be so hard on ourselves.

And if we don’t stop, it will be our kids who pay the price.

We can hold ourselves to high standards without shaming and punishing ourselves for our little mistakes.

And if we choose the route of mental destruction, nobody wins.

So remember, you’re going to fuck up. You’re going to feel like a bad dad. Before the shame spiral can take you, step up, show up, and be the man you need to be.

Next time you fuck up, try it out:

Take a breath

When something happens, our first reaction is rarely the best move. We act on instinct, and for a solid response, we need to take a second before jumping in.

In crisis response for wilderness first aid, we always talked about smoking the mental cigarette. Take a deep breath and let it out. Bring yourself back to center so you can think about what needs to be done, not react and act in a way that might just set you back further.

The five seconds you take to gather yourself can save you hours in the long run and won’t do any real damage in the now.

Do the damage control

Okay, you sliced your baby’s thumb and he’s bleeding.

No matter your current emotions, tuck them back and act.

Yep. Swallow your emotions for a second. The opposite of what everyone is telling all men and other humans to do right now.

Put a bandaid on the situation for right now. Sometimes that means pushing through so you can show up right now, when you’re needed. The emotions will come back, don’t worry.

Stop the bleed and calm the baby.

Now you can deal with the other shit.

Zoom out, way out

How’s your guilt/shame/self-punishment going to help your baby?

It won’t. So stop lying to yourself and thinking that it will, that you deserve it, that you shouldn’t forgive yourself.

Do you want to be the dad that teaches their kid to learn from mistakes or the one that teaches them to hide from the hard shit?

Forgive yourself to grow for them

Now’s the moment to take the lesson from the screwup and move forward.

What can you learn from this? What was going on that built up to the moment?

Most of our mistakes are rarely, if ever, a one-off standalone occurrence. There’s usually a buildup of small things that lead to us fucking up.

What needs to change in the system to do better next time?

What do you need to do to make that change?

How will changing that help your kid out in the long run?

Now, come up with a single thing you can do to work toward that change.

Now go do it.