Our 813th Dad in the Limelight is John Lam. I want to thank John Lam for being a part of this series. It has been great getting connected with him and now sharing John Lam with all of you.
1) Tell me about yourself, (as well as how you are in the limelight for my readers knowledge)
My name is John Lam. I’m a Professional Dad and Kept Man. My previous career was in the world of Historic Preservation, where I rebuilt and ran Pigtown Main Street, one of Baltimore’s Main Street programs. I have a huge passion for historic places and have spent an insane amount of time studying place making and tourism brand development.
I’m also an avid hiker and am currently one of the Baltimore Branch Ambassadors for Hike it Baby. Oh, and I BBQ so much I’m shocked I haven’t died from smoke inhalation—but man do I always smell incredible. That glorious applewood scent really lingers in the ole beard.
For awhile, I was working on a blog to document our fun travels and adventures, but after awhile, I realized I hated writing about it. I much preferred just taking photos and sharing our stories that way. With that in mind, you can follow us over at Instagram.com/Lamityville
Outside of all of that, my days are usually spent introducing my daughter to things that I love, trying to steer her away from things that I hate, and pretending that I don’t let her watch nearly as much TV as she does.
2) Tell me about your family
My daughter, Amity, is 2 ½ and really starting to come into a very interesting identity. Her biggest loves in life so far are Halloween—which she believes is 100% of all the time and, I imagine, will be horribly crushed to discover that it’s only 1 day per year—and “Far, Far Away”, as she calls it. Yoda, ‘Dark Vader’ and ‘Sireepee-O’ are her favorite characters. She’s a bundle of joy and evil and everything in between. She’s also recently decided that she doesn’t require a nap every day. We are, however, still negotiating this.
My wife, Heather, and I met 7 years ago, shortly after I turned 30 and right after I almost got myself killed while backwoods camping on Assateague Island. I think that story made her realize I needed someone stable to prevent me from doing stupid things. I mean, it didn’t work, because I almost died again on another stupid hik
e 2 months later, but it was still nice to have her be part of my life. So I decided to marry her.
She works super hard to keep the family financially secure so that I can be a SAHD to our daughter. She’s pretty much the best. But I knew that, really, right from the beginning. On our first date, we bonded hardcore over our mutual love for Mr. Action, aka Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen. After that, I knew we were destined to be together.
She also made me put it in our wedding vows that I would always have a beard. There’s an amazing kind of emotional freedom that comes with knowing you’ll never have to be clean shaven ever again.
3) What has been the largest challenge you have had in being a father?
Dealing with isolation, hands down.
The kid herself is a total cakewalk compared to the feelings of isolation that can come with being an At-Home parent. A lot of it is totally my own fault. I’ve never been great at making friends and have always tended to isolate myself because of some pretty deep rooted social anxiety issues. But it got way worse after becoming a father. I found it really difficult to connect with other local SAHDs, I found it really difficult to connect with my existing friends. And all of a sudden—and for far too long—I found my entire identity wrapped around being a father. Sometimes I’d end up going weeks without speaking to another adult, in person, that wasn’t my wife or my brother. It’s only within the last few months that I’ve started pushing myself to break out of that. Joining Hike it Baby, and leading local hikes with other parents of small children, has been a huge boon for me.
My 2nd biggest challenge is not eating all of the candy I buy to bribe my daughter into using the potty. Swedish Fish are the Devil’s treats, you guys.
4) What advice would you give to other fathers?
DON’T ISOLATE YOURSELVES.
Beyond that, man, maybe this is for new fathers most of all, but work hard to enjoy each stage of your kid’s growth as it’s happening. Because you will never get it back and you will miss it.
We decided right after Amity was born that we’re 1-and-done. And as she grows, I realize how hard it is for me emotionally to deal with the fact that I’ll never get to snuggle with an infant again, or see her struggling to crawl, or cruising. I miss that stuff so much and now when I look at her I find myself thinking “What am I going to miss a year from now?”
I try really hard to enjoy everything that she’s doing because in a year, or 6 months, or next week, she’ll be doing something totally different.
5) How have you come to balance parenthood and outside life?
Is that a thing? Clearly, this is something I am absolutely failing at. But this really goes back into that whole isolation business. When the vast majority of my day, every day, is being the primary caregiver for my kid, it’s very hard to have an “outside” life. I don’t do very much without my kid. That said, finding a babysitter we trusted (that wasn’t family doing us a favor) has been a life saver for my marriage over the last few months.
So maybe that’s another piece of important advice: Find a babysitter!
6) What have you learned from the fathers that you have interacted with?
That everyone has their own role and their own vision of what being a father is for them.
My biggest influences, for better or worse, were my own dad and my brother. My dad believed that his role as a father was to make sure we had a roof over our heads, clothes to wear, and food to eat. He wasn’t necessarily involved in the day to day raising of my brother and I, despite us all living in the same house.
My brother was very different. He met the mother of his daughter while she was already pregnant. He took on the fatherhood role and kept that role even after the two of them split up when my niece was 5-6. His vision of fatherhood was one of total involvement even though his daughter didn’t live with him, didn’t share his DNA, and he had never been able to officially adopt her. She’s now 18 and I’ve had the pleasure of watching him be an involved father to her from birth into adulthood.
My own vision of fatherhood is to be much more the man my brother is than the man my father was.
7) What else would you share regarding your experiences as a father thus far?
The cliches about how rewarding it is are all true. Even at the worst of times—during teething, intense public meltdowns, high pitched screams that are clearly the origin of Banshee wails—it’s all worth it. I’ve done a number of things in my life that I’m super proud of, but nothing compares to raising my daughter.
Her vocabulary, and contextual understanding, have been increasing dramatically over the last number of weeks. What had once been sentence fragments has evolved into fully formed speech. Recently, she asked her first fully formed question: “Daddy, can you make me a sandwich?” and I almost cried. I mean, I said no, because she just had breakfast, but still …
8) What have been the most memorable experiences that you have had thus far as a parent?
I feel like there are just an overwhelming amount of ways to answer this question. It’s impossible to choose “the most memorable”, so I’ll just pick an entire set of memories:
Last year, for the NPS Centennial, I bought an NPS Passport Stamp Booklet. I decided that during the centennial, my daughter and I would travel around and collect 100 Passport Stamps from local National Parks, NPS Museums, NPS Historic Monuments, etc. It took us about 6 months, but we finally got our 100 stamps. We went on a ton of hikes and even went camping twice, just her and I. We were even in Harpers Ferry during the US Mint’s Launch Party for the new Harpers Ferry “America the Beautiful” Quarter (and were among the first people to get the new coin!).
Those memories are so super important to me because they were all about introducing her to historic preservation and nature conservation, even if, realistically, she was far too young to understand. But I’ll have that book of stamps for her when she is old enough to get it. And she’ll know that once upon a time, Daddy took her on a quest.
If you have any questions for John Lam, please leave a comment here and I will make sure that he gets them so that he may be able to respond!
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The post Dads in the Limelight – John Lam appeared first on Dad of Divas.