Surrounding Togetherness Pressure Comes in Many Forms

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When one of our sons was about 11, he came to me and asked, “Dad can we go hunting sometime?”

I immediately felt anxiety. I’m not a hunter. I grew up in the suburbs of DC. I’m not against hunting, it’s just not who I am.

But we live in a rural area, and I’m sure that my son had noticed that many of his friends went hunting with their dads. I felt surrounding togetherness pressure. Not because I wanted to be like other dads, but because I didn’t want to disappoint my son.

Surrounding togetherness pressure doesn’t just come from parents, bosses and congregants. And it’s not just external. Sometimes we put pressure on ourselves to conform to something, even when nobody else is demanding it.

My son wasn’t being demanding. He was just asking. The pressure to conform was in me.

Nonetheless, I was having a hard time picturing us hunting. We’d have to buy guns and outdoor gear, do hunter safety training and actually learn to hunt. It’s not that I didn’t want to do it. I was struggling with whether this was something really worth doing.

I also realized that this was not about hunting. It was about bonding. It was the opportunity to have something we could do together, like other dads and sons. It’s process, not content.

But we did do things together. I coached his youth basketball team. We went to NFL games together. We played catch, and I went to all his little league games.

So, after a long pause, I responded, “I don’t think so.”

My wife, being the brilliant person she is, jumped in quickly. She has many cousins from Pennsylvania who are avid hunters. She said, “Maybe we can arrange to have one of my cousins take you hunting.”

That was the last we heard of it.

Before you start thinking about what a bad father I was, let me tell you what a bad son I was.

I didn’t grow up hunting, but I did grow up fishing. My dad LOVED ocean fishing. Whether it was a surf rod, a head boat or a charter, he loved to fish and eat what he caught.

Me? Not so much. I went with him because he was my dad. As I got older my best friend across the street would go with us to Ocean City and that made it better. I think he liked it much better than I did. In fact when we were teenagers he started fishing in a local pond. To this day he is an avid fly fisherman.

Ironically, my friend’s dad didn’t fish. He loved baseball. My friend played baseball, but he didn’t love it. But I did.

As things turned out, my friend would end up going fishing with my dad and I would go talk baseball with his.

As I look back, I believe our families taught us that it was OK to be yourself. You didn’t have to be just like your dad or like other dads. I’m grateful for that lesson.

The pressure to conform is everywhere. Most times, the best thing we can do is be ourselves.

I did end up coaching my son’s little league team when he was 13 and 14. I have some great memories from that time. I hope he does, too.

The Rev. Jack Shitama serves as executive director of Pecometh Camp & Retreat Ministries in Maryland.  This post is republished with permission from his blog The Non-Anxious Leader.