I recently had one of those realizations that only happens when u reach a certain age.  It’s the age that your parents or teachers or someone that was in your life when you were a kid and you thought they were soooo old.  Certainly, older than you’d ever be.   Well it’s happened, I’m that old.  But that’s not my big realization.  It’s a lot of things actually but this one is about why my Dad would always wear his hats in the most peculiar way.  Or just the fact that he at times chose to wear a particularly goofy looking hat.  It became known as “Dad Hat” to us kids.  He did this mostly around us kids on outings and especially on vacations.  We would even imitate this behavior by placing a hat high atop our heads, carefully not letting it even remotely look like its going to stay on and then say to our siblings, “Hey look, I have Dad hat.”

Now I know my Dad is not the only Dad that did this.  I’ve seen it many times on other people’s Dads.  But now I get why he did this.  I started doing this around my kids and their friends.  If you know me you have probably seen me wearing hats.  I go through hat phases now and then when enjoy wearing hats.  But this isn’t what I’m talking about.  I’m talking about jumping in the car to go drop off my kids’ friends or to go get pizza or something and I’ll feel the need to wear a hat in a weird way or just grab the most ridiculous looking hat around.  It’s the feeling of not caring about impressing anyone and wanting to embarrass my kids in a fun non-threatening or shaming way.  At least not too much shaming.  I get it!  I always wondered why the hell Dad did that.  Did he think the hat was uncomfortable to wear properly?  Does he think that looks good?  Doesn’t he realize he’s going to have to balance that hat on his head like a circus act in order to keep it on?  No, no, no.  It wasn’t that at all.  He was just being silly with his kids and didn’t care what people thought at that moment.  He didn’t even care that we were gonna think he was a dork.  As if to say, “I’m not going to let you take life so serious all the time.”

It’s a funny thing getting older.  There’s just some things that used to be soooo important that you realize are no biggie.  A lot of things.  Life doesn’t revolve around you and yet it does kind of revolve around your kids.  And you’re OK with that.  Just don’t let them know you’re OK with it.  Put on a stupid hat.

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