The other day I was looking at a picture of me and my kids and my first thought was, “That’s a good picture, we look really nice.” My second thought was, “How will this picture age?” Despite how good I think we look in it now, I am sure there will come a time we we look at it and somebody will say, “Oh my god, look at Dad!”
The question is, what about me now will become so mockable in the future? I don’t think I dress like a Dad. I don’t own any clothes that could be described as cargo. I don’t own a pair of white New Balance shoes. I never tuck in a t-shirt. I never tuck in any shirt for that matter. My shorts don’t display an awkward amount of thigh. Will my kids really look back and say, “I can’t believe Dad was wearing jeans and a flannel shirt!” Will I be forced to defend my Under Armor golf shirts as “the style at the time”?
Then again I’m sure fathers throughout history have thought this same thing. Some cave man dad thought he looked fine wearing that pelt he got on their trip to the hot springs while his kids were probably rolling their eyes.
It will probably be the hair. When children get older they are inevitably shocked by the fact that their fathers once had hair. And stylish hair at that. Dad had long hair! Dad had an afro! Dad had perm!
Right now my hair is relatively long, voluminous, and brown. Looking at the generations before me, two of those three aren’t making it past 40. By the time my children are teenagers the recession of my hairline will move from present participle to past tense and the salt will outnumber the pepper, and it will blow their minds I once had to borrow their hair ties to keep these flowing locks out of my eyes. And I’ll run my hands over my head the way an amputee tries to scratch an itch on their lost limb.
One thing I definitely have going for me is not having a mustache. A dad growing a mustache is him placing a permanent time stamp on an era. Any photograph evidence of anything that happens in that time will be from when dad had a mustache.
“Hey kids, check out this picture of your dad at the Super Bowl with Leonardo DiCaprio, The Rock, Barack Obama, and real dinosaur they brought back to life Jurassic Park style!”
“Oh my god, look at dad’s mustache!”
I Think Therefore I Dad 