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# Your Kid Ain't That Damn Special
- URL: https://rough-edges.ghost.io/your-kid-aint-that-damn-special/
- Published: 2026-10-22T17:35:13.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-26T06:21:39.000Z
- Description: I'm probably gonna piss off a whole bunch of parents with this one. Oh well. Somebody ought to say it. Your kid ain't that damn special. There. I said it. Now before some pissed-off mama comes charging up my driveway with a Stanley cup in one…
- Author: Joe Durst
- Tags: Personal Life, #blogger-archive, #Import 2026-10-26 03:50

I'm probably gonna piss off a whole bunch of parents with this one.

Oh well.

Somebody ought to say it.

Your kid ain't that damn special.

There. I said it.

Now before some pissed-off mama comes charging up my driveway with a Stanley cup in one hand and a restraining order in the other, hear me out.

I'm not saying your kid ain't special to you.

He ought to be.

I'm saying the rest of the world ain't obligated to think he's the greatest goddamn thing that ever happened to humanity just because you managed to reproduce.

And while we're on the subject, can we quit pretending everybody was just tickled shitless when they found out they were gonna be parents?

Jesus Christ.

You get on Facebook and you'd think every pregnancy announcement was the second coming of Christ.

"We're so blessed!"

"Our little miracle!"

"Our hearts are so full!"

Well, ain't that fucking wonderful.

And maybe some of y'all really did feel that way.

Good for you.

But some of us didn't.

Some of us were scared shitless.

Some of us were pissed off.

Some of us were wondering how in the hell we were gonna afford another mouth to feed.

And some of us didn't want the kid in the first place.

There.

Let's talk about that for a minute.

## I DIDN'T WANT TO BE A DAD

I've never made much of a secret about this, although I don't go around announcing it at the grocery store either.

I didn't want to be a father.

Not at first.

Matter of fact, when I found out Tucker was coming, I wanted his mother to have an abortion.

Yep.

That's what I wanted.

Ain't proud of it.

But I'm not gonna sit here and rewrite history because somebody on the internet might think less of me.

That's what happened.

And when Tucker was born, I wish I could tell you I looked down at that little boy and immediately fell head over heels in love.

You know, like they do in the movies.

The father holds the baby. Tears start rolling down his face. Some beautiful music starts playing. Suddenly he understands the meaning of life.

Bullshit.

That ain't how it happened for me.

I looked at him.

He was a baby.

A little red-faced thing that cried, shit, slept, and occasionally threw up on somebody.

Everybody else seemed pretty damn impressed.

I wasn't.

And I know how awful that sounds.

Believe me, I do.

But that's the truth.

I didn't suddenly become a different man because somebody handed me a newborn.

I was still the same stubborn son of a bitch I'd been the day before.

Only now I had a baby.

And I didn't have the slightest goddamn idea what I was supposed to do with him.

## NOBODY WANTS TO ADMIT THIS SHIT

Here's what gets me.

We live in a world where everybody's supposed to have the perfect reaction to everything.

Find out you're pregnant?

Better cry happy tears.

Baby gets born?

Better post seventeen pictures and tell everybody you've never experienced a love like this before.

Kid takes his first shit in the toilet?

Apparently we need a goddamn parade.

And God forbid you admit you weren't particularly excited about becoming a parent.

People look at you like you just confessed to drowning puppies.

Well, I'm gonna tell you something.

Not everybody becomes a parent because they planned it.

Not everybody is ready.

Not everybody is happy about it.

And not everybody falls in love with their kid the second they lay eyes on him.

Some people have to grow into it.

I did.

And I don't think pretending otherwise does anybody a damn bit of good.

Now, don't misunderstand me.

There's a difference between not wanting to become a parent and refusing to take responsibility once you are one.

A pretty big fucking difference.

You can be scared.

You can be angry.

You can wish things had turned out differently.

But once you've got a child depending on you, you've got some decisions to make about the kind of person you're gonna be.

And those decisions matter a hell of a lot more than whatever pretty bullshit you posted on Facebook when the baby was born.

## I HAD TO LEARN TO LOVE THAT BOY

I didn't wake up one morning and suddenly become Father of the Year.

Hell, I'm still waiting on that award.

I learned.

Little by little.

And sometimes I learned because I screwed something up.

I learned that being a father wasn't about having some magical feeling every time I looked at Tucker.

It was about showing up.

It was about taking care of him when I was tired.

Doing things I didn't particularly feel like doing.

Putting somebody else's needs ahead of my own.

And discovering, somewhere in the middle of all that everyday bullshit, that this little person was becoming the most important part of my life.

I couldn't tell you the exact day it happened.

There wasn't some big dramatic moment.

No music playing.

No fucking angels coming down from heaven.

It just happened.

And eventually I realized something.

That boy I hadn't wanted?

I couldn't imagine my life without him.

Funny how that works.

And before somebody decides to turn this into one of those inspirational stories about how everything happens for a reason, don't.

I ain't trying to sell you some beautiful lesson about destiny.

I'm telling you what happened to me.

I was a man who didn't want to be a father.

Then I became one.

And I had to learn how to be a decent one.

I'm still learning.

## NOW LET'S TALK ABOUT YOUR LITTLE ANGEL

Because here's where I think some parents have completely lost their goddamn minds.

Just because you love your kid doesn't mean everybody else has to put up with his bullshit.

Your kid can be an asshole.

Mine can too.

Tucker's a good boy.

But there have been days I've looked at him and wondered how somebody so smart could do something so incredibly fucking stupid.

That's kids.

They do stupid shit.

They lie.

They test you.

They break things.

They make decisions that defy every known law of common sense.

And sometimes they need somebody to tell them they're acting like a little shit.

But nowadays?

Teacher says your kid was disrupting class.

"Well, maybe the teacher doesn't understand his personality."

Coach says your kid isn't putting in the effort.

"Well, maybe the coach isn't recognizing his potential."

Neighbor says your kid threw a rock through his window.

"Well, what did the neighbor do to upset him?"

For fuck's sake.

Maybe your kid's just being a little asshole.

It happens.

You don't have to stop loving him.

You just have to tell him to knock it the fuck off.

## YOUR KID DOESN'T NEED A GODDAMN TROPHY FOR EVERYTHING

I don't know when we decided children needed to be congratulated for every single thing they do.

I'm all for encouraging kids.

I really am.

But encouragement and blowing smoke up somebody's ass are two different things.

Your kid played baseball?

Good.

Did he win?

No?

Well, somebody had to lose.

That's generally how a baseball game works.

You don't have to convince him he was the greatest player on the field when he spent half the game picking his nose and watching airplanes.

Maybe he wasn't very good.

That's alright.

Not everybody's good at everything.

Hell, I'm a grown man and there are plenty of things I suck at.

You don't see anybody throwing me a party because I managed to get the fitted sheet back on the bed without having a nervous breakdown.

And let me tell you, that accomplishment deserves some recognition.

Those things are designed by Satan.

But seriously.

Sometimes your kid's gonna lose.

Sometimes somebody else is gonna be better.

Sometimes he's gonna work his ass off and still come up short.

That's life.

And the sooner he learns how to deal with it, the better off he's gonna be.

## THE WORLD AIN'T GONNA THINK YOUR KID'S AS WONDERFUL AS YOU DO

Here's something every parent ought to understand.

Your kid is special to you.

To his future boss, he's an employee.

To his landlord, he's a tenant.

To the cop who pulls him over, he's another driver who apparently couldn't read the speed limit sign.

Nobody's gonna care that you think he's brilliant.

Nobody's gonna care that he was student of the month in fourth grade.

And nobody's gonna give him a free pass through life because his mama says he's got a good heart.

He's gonna have to learn how to get along with people.

How to work.

How to take criticism.

How to hear the word no without having a goddamn emotional collapse.

And how to admit when he's wrong.

That last one's a big one.

Because I've met grown men who still haven't figured it out.

Everything's somebody else's fault.

Lost their job? Boss was an asshole.

Got divorced? Wife was crazy.

Got arrested? Cop had it out for him.

At some point, you gotta look in the mirror and consider the possibility that maybe you're the problem.

And if you never teach your kid to do that, you're not doing him any favors.

You're just raising an asshole the rest of us are gonna have to deal with.

Thanks a lot.

## I AIN'T BEEN A PERFECT FATHER EITHER

Now, before anybody thinks I'm sitting here handing out parenting advice from some great position of authority, let me clear something up.

I've screwed up plenty.

I've lost my temper.

I've said things I shouldn't have.

I've been too hard on Tucker about some things and probably too easy about others.

I've made decisions I wish I could go back and change.

And I've apologized to him.

Imagine that.

A grown-ass father admitting he was wrong to his own kid.

Some people act like doing that undermines your authority.

I think that's bullshit.

How the hell are you gonna teach your kid to take responsibility for his mistakes if you won't take responsibility for yours?

You can't spend eighteen years telling a child to be honest, own his mistakes, and treat people right while you're walking around acting like your own shit doesn't stink.

Kids notice that stuff.

Believe me.

They notice a hell of a lot more than we give them credit for.

And I figure Tucker's learned just as much from watching me screw something up and try to make it right as he has from listening to one of my lectures.

Probably more.

Because if there's one thing I've discovered about raising a teenager, it's that they have an amazing ability to hear absolutely nothing you're saying while remembering every stupid thing you've ever done.

## YOUR JOB AIN'T TO KEEP YOUR KID HAPPY

Somewhere along the way, people got the idea that being a good parent means making sure your kid is happy every minute of the day.

Bullshit.

Sometimes being a good parent means your kid's gonna be pissed off at you.

Sometimes it means telling him no.

Sometimes it means letting him be disappointed.

And sometimes it means standing there while he informs you that you're the meanest son of a bitch who ever walked the face of the earth.

Fine.

I've been called worse.

My job isn't to make Tucker happy every waking minute.

My job is to help him become somebody who can take care of himself.

Somebody who keeps his word.

Somebody who treats people with respect.

Somebody who understands that the world doesn't revolve around his ass.

And somebody who can make a mistake without spending the next six months blaming everybody else for it.

I want him to have a good life.

But I also want him to know how to handle a bad day.

Because he's gonna have plenty of those too.

We all do.

## AND FOR CHRIST'S SAKE, LET THEM BE KIDS

Now here's where some of y'all are gonna think I'm contradicting myself.

Because while I think kids need discipline and responsibility, I also think some parents need to back the hell off.

Your kid doesn't need every minute of his life scheduled.

He doesn't need twelve activities, three tutors, a personal trainer, and a five-year career plan before he's old enough to shave.

Let the little bastard get bored once in a while.

Let him ride his bike.

Let him build something stupid in the backyard.

Let him make a mess.

Let him figure something out without you standing over his shoulder telling him how to do it.

And let him fail at something without turning it into a family emergency.

Not every kid's gonna be a doctor.

Not every kid's gonna be a professional athlete.

Not every kid's gonna be the smartest person in the room.

And that's perfectly fucking fine.

We need decent people a hell of a lot more than we need extraordinary ones.

## HERE'S WHAT I'VE FIGURED OUT

I started this whole thing by telling you your kid ain't that damn special.

And I meant it.

But maybe I ought to explain something.

Tucker's special to me.

More than I ever imagined he would be.

And that's coming from a man who didn't even want him in the first place.

I ain't proud of that part of my life.

But I'm not ashamed to tell the truth about it either.

Because pretending I was some wonderful, excited father from the very beginning wouldn't make me a better man.

It would just make me a liar.

And I think there's enough of that bullshit on the internet already.

I didn't fall in love with fatherhood overnight.

I had to learn it.

I had to grow up in ways I didn't particularly want to.

I had to figure out that loving somebody isn't always about how you feel.

Sometimes it's about what you do.

And I think that's where some parents get it wrong.

They spend so much time telling everybody how much they love their children that they forget the most important part.

Raising them.

Teaching them.

Correcting them when they're wrong.

Letting them become their own people.

And preparing them for a world that ain't always gonna be kind.

I don't need the world to think Tucker's special.

I need Tucker to grow up knowing how to be a decent man.

And if I manage to help him do that, I'll figure I've accomplished something worth a damn.

Not bad for a guy who never wanted to be a father.

A LITTLE MORE TO THE STORY

## I WROTE A WHOLE DAMN BOOK ABOUT THIS.

There's a lot more to the story of me becoming Tucker's dad than I could fit into one article.

I wrote about it in my book, *Live Like a Man: I Never Said I Was a Good Example.*

And I didn't clean it up to make myself look good.

I wrote about not wanting to be a father. About wanting his mother to have an abortion. About looking at my own newborn son and not feeling what everybody seemed to think I was supposed to feel.

And about how all that changed.

How I learned to love that boy.

How becoming his dad changed the way I looked at myself, responsibility, and what it actually means to be a man.

Some of it ain't pretty.

Some of it probably won't make you like me very much.

That's alright.

I didn't write it to win a popularity contest.

I wrote it because it's the truth.

And maybe there's another father out there who needs to know he ain't the only one who didn't get this shit figured out on the first day.

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260-page digital book • 12 chapters • Instant PDF download

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