Dan Coleman's daughter, Zia, with pigtails

“Good job, kiddo!”

I don’t know how many times a day I say this to one of my kids, and the list of things I say it about is pretty weird. Can one really do a good job taking a nap, peeing in a toilet, or covering one’s mouth when coughing? Is putting your shirt and pants on backwards really doing a good job getting dressed? And does it really make sense to tell someone she is doing a good job not falling off her chair?

Around the house I’m as liberal dispensing praise for great work as former president George W. Bush, whose infamous line to his embattled FEMA chief, Michael Brown, became a favorite of critics during the Hurricane Katrina crisis: “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job!” I stretch the definition of success so much in the context of parenting that I’ve grown suspicious of it, and like most parents, I do my fair share of questioning the term in reference to myself.

How does any parent know if they are doing a good job? One of the strangest aspects of the whole experience is that it’s nearly impossible to tell. Imagine a job where you have no boss, and exceeding expectations in the performance of your duties may result in a temper tantrum. Here the customer is not always right. In fact, he has to wear his seatbelt. Now everyone feels bad: you, your kids and all the rest of the people on the plane listening to him scream. Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job. But actually, you are.

Dan Coleman's daughter, Zia, with pigtails

What other job requires one to be on the clock 24/7, and possess a working knowledge of first-aid, nutrition, child development and how to fix a broken plastic tiara? (Hint: As in most cases, duct tape will do the trick, at least for a while). And did you receive any training? Heck no. In fact, this job changes so fast, every day feels like the first. Stranger still, the best thing you can do for answers is turn not to the great cultural advances of the 21st century, but to gut instincts over 200,000 years old, which come to you via DNA you share with people who brushed their teeth with rocks and thought stick figures flickering by firelight on a cave wall were as entertaining as Star Wars.

There is no procedure manual, departmental wiki or Slack app to help you in this office, and the more you listen to people who think they’ve got it all figured out, the more depressed you feel. After five years on the job, I’ve begun to suspect the greatest asset I bring to the table is the fact that I rarely know what to do and expect each day to include any number of mistakes from which I can learn. The most useful parenting tip I’ve ever read didn’t even contain instructions. “Your children are either the center of your life or they’re not, and the rest is commentary,” wrote New Yorker columnist and Kansas City native Calvin Trillin. Anyone who calls Arthur Bryant’s the best restaurant in the world can’t be a dummy, but like everything else about parenting, taking advice from a writer best known for opining about his favorite foods makes little sense.

Nor does the idea that getting fired after putting in several decades will be the surest sign you’ve done well. As Alison Gopnik (who is neither a Neanderthal nor a Kansas Citian, but still worth listening to) writes in her neuro-scientific look at early childhood, “The Scientist in the Crib,” parenting is “like falling utterly, madly, deeply in love and yet knowing that in 20 years the object of your affections will leave you,” the very best outcome being that “our children will end up as decent, independent adults who will regard us with bemused and tolerant affection.”

Reading over such a job description, one has to wonder why anyone would ever apply. Then again, what other job lets you build sandcastles on the clock? Or paint the front porch with mud? Or smash an acorn with a ball peen hammer just to see what’s inside? Or smash a bunch more because the first was so fun?

“Good job, Daddy!” cries my daughter as we stand together in front of the mirror admiring her pigtails, which I have just feebly rubber-banded into place. She sees only the front, which looks OK, but the back of her head is a mess so twisted and tight it must hurt.

Thanks, sweetheart. I only make this job look hard.

— Dan Coleman is secretary on the board of Dads of Douglas County. He is a part-time stay-at-home dad, but in his other life he is a librarian at the Lawrence Public Library, where he selects children’s and parenting books for the Children’s Room. He can be reached at danielfcoleman@yahoo.com.