It’s kind of cool to have my first chance to post here at Dad-o-Matic on the final day of a year, and the dawn of a new one.  2008 and 2009 are incredibly important years for me as a father.  In 2008 my step-daughter Stephanie turned eighteen.  She’s an adult now, and I have to say that, parental bias aside, she’s grown from a perfect child into a fine young woman.  I hope I can claim some of the credit for that, but as you move through life you realize that young, old, and in between, you can only exert so much influence on another’s life.  My youngest daughter, Katie, turned five three days before Christmas.  She’ll start school this coming year – another huge step.

One thing I’ve learned is that the clock doesn’t move the same for parents as it does for children.  The older you get and the closer you come to watching everyone branch off into their own lives, the faster the days and years tumble by.  I remember when they moved more slowly.  I suspect that, for my children, it seems at times as if the hands on the clock are standing still.

My step-son Billy, the Guitar Hero whiz, has stepped up to real guitar and is learning fast.  He’s always been a little headstrong, but in the past year – he’s fifteen now – he’s begun reading for pleasure, learning to build websites, learned to play chess so well I don’t even want to play him anymore, and – in general – shown the signs of growing up and moving on that I knew were coming, but still find myself surprised to see.

I don’t want to go on and on here, but there is a message in this for me, and it’s a message I’d like to share with fathers and parents everywhere.  Whether you have fifteen years or only a matter of months left with your kids before they move on to begin their own separate lives, make the time you have left with them special.  Remember where life’s real priorities lie and invest in their future.  I have only months to go with Stephanie before she starts college and breaks away.  Billy isn’t far behind.  I have two boys from a previous marriage that I don’t see often enough – they are fourteen and fifteen and growing into young men.  We have a little longer with Katie, but when she crosses the threshold into school that first day, a bit of her life is lost to us as well.  I know we’ve forged bonds that will bring them back and keep us a family, at least I hope we have, but it will never be quite the same after 2009.

In the coming year, then, I have a family-oriented resolution. I hope to pry myself from my job and my writing career and focus more of my time on making it a year we all remember – a good year that will bring us closer together.  Maybe next January 31st I can drop back in here and tell you how it went.

David Niall Wilson