Fellas,

I've had several dogs over the years. Man's best friend, huh? Loyal, protective, playful, stubborn, affectionate; sometimes they seem to know you're having a bad day before you've said a word.

Live with them long enough and you start noticing the little differences too. Their habits, what excites them, and the strange little things that make one completely different from another.

They have personalities. Anyone who's lived with dogs probably knows what I mean. One wants to be underneath you all day while another is perfectly content across the room.

One figures something out immediately. Another looks at you like you're the idiot for expecting him to do it in the first place. Same species. Sometimes the same breed. Raised in the same house. Completely different dogs.

My sons grew up around them too. And years ago, one of my boys asked me a question about them. I don't remember every word of the conversation anymore, but I remember the question underneath it.

Are dogs conscious?

I told him no. I’m his father. He asked me a question. I gave him an answer. Your child asks you something, and you’re supposed to know. Except I didn’t know.

I wasn’t sure. I hadn’t studied it. I didn’t have some great understanding of animal consciousness. And somehow, I was still certain the answer was no.

I remember how certain I was. Except I was wrong. He saw something in those animals that I didn’t. When I started looking into it for myself, I learned how much I had missed.

A dog's world isn't merely a lower-resolution version of ours. Its nose gives it access to information we barely notice. Dogs and other animals hear, smell, sense, and respond to parts of the world completely unavailable to us.

And eventually, I had to walk back into that conversation and tell him his father had gotten something wrong.

Because the deeper I looked, the more I realized that some of the things we think make us uniquely human aren't quite as unique as we imagine.

For most of our history, belonging meant protection, food, family, information, and survival. Today, the stakes may look different, but we still build tribes everywhere:

family, religion, profession, race, politics, the guys at work, the group chat.

Spend enough time looking at other animals and something becomes obvious. We aren't the only creatures whose lives depend heavily on belonging.

Some animals live in cooperative groups where they find protection, food, and help raising their young. When they're pushed out, the consequences aren't merely social; stress rises, health suffers, and survival becomes harder.

African elephant herds are often led by older females. She's not necessarily valuable because she's the biggest or strongest elephant in the herd.

She's valuable because she's been around. She remembers where to find water when conditions get bad.

She recognizes other elephants and can help the herd determine whether strangers are friends or threats. Younger elephants can benefit from knowledge she spent decades accumulating.

Her experience keeps the herd alive. Fathers do something similar; we spend years learning lessons our children may one day need in minutes.

Vampire bats show us something different. A bat that found food will share with one that didn’t. They remember who has shared with them before.

They form partnerships. They get selective. They even show behaviors that, through human eyes, look a lot like jealousy. Apparently, keeping score in relationships isn't something we invented either.

Across nature, survival isn't always the story of the strongest individual standing alone. Sometimes it’s experience. Sometimes it’s cooperation. Sometimes it’s memory.

And life doesn’t pause for any of them.

The elephant moves.

The wolf hunts.

The bat searches for blood.

The bird repairs the nest.

And life continues.

They're doing what living organisms do.

It doesn't pause for the father either.

The message goes unanswered.

The decision gets made without you.

Your intentions get misunderstood.

Your time gets shortened.

And somehow, Monday morning still comes.

You still have to work.

You still have to make the most of whatever time you have with your child.

Life continues.

Fellas, we tend to imagine leadership moving in one direction. The father teaches. The child learns. We speak. They listen. We're supposed to know the answer because we're the ones who've been here longer.

But fatherhood doesn't always work that way.

Sometimes your child sees something you missed. Sometimes they ask a question you can't answer. Sometimes you listen long enough to realize they were teaching you something.

And sometimes you realize you were simply wrong.

You can protect the image of the father who always knows, always has the answer, and never has to walk anything back.

Or you can tell your child the truth.

I don't know.

I was wrong.

Those sentences show your child what to do when they’re wrong.

They show that you can be strong enough to admit when somebody else saw something you didn't. And our children will see things we don't.

They'll grow up in a different world. They'll have different experiences. They'll ask questions we never thought to ask.

Pay attention.

Listen to them.

You don't surrender your responsibility as their father by allowing them to teach you something. You're still leading.

You're showing them that leadership isn't pretending to know everything. It’s having the courage to learn what you missed.

Until next time

Barkim

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