Guest Post by Tyler Pawlak
Girl Dad
My two-year-old daughter’s face lights up with joy as she spins the crank on our coffee grinder. She’s spinning it counterclockwise; it isn’t doing a thing, but that’s okay.
I hold the container of coffee beans up to her face when she asks to smell it. I can’t tell if she is really getting wafts of aroma or if she is just blowing air all over the coffee (which I apologize for if you’re ever at my house for a cup).
She reaches into the container of beans and delicately picks a few out to examine them. She sets them on the counter to play with them when one slips her grasp and tumbles to the floor.
“Fall on floor,” she proclaims, over and over, to alert me that something has happened. I tell her she's being very courteous to the ants whose queen might need a cup of coffee after taking care of so many kids!
My daughter has never had coffee. She has no personal investment in it. There is nothing about her life that would lead her to have any curiosity towards hot bean water. Except me. My daughter loves to help make coffee because I love to make coffee and she wants to find the same joy she sees in me.
My morning routine and cup of coffee was a personal ritual. I was never a “not before my coffee” person, but I very much enjoyed the processes around making coffee and sometimes nerding out a little too much. As with many things we are passionate about, we also tend to be quite efficient at it. But life is no longer as efficient when you have a little one around.
My daughter naturally wants to be included in my process of making a cup of coffee because she has seen me involved and interested in it. It's taken a while, however, for me to learn how to accept her into a routine that I was so accustomed to performing single-handedly.
One of the hardest parts about inviting our kids into our hobbies is having to start from the ground up again (no pun intended). We already know the basics ourselves, but now have to slow down and move at the pace of someone just starting to learn. One way I’ve personally found success in doing this (at least with a two-year-old), is to do the common exercise of dictating exactly what you are doing when you are doing it step-by-step. This has a dual benefit of potentially answering any questions the child might have during the process and helping you focus on what you’re doing and perfecting your own technique.
No matter what, even if they’ve seen something a million times, a child will always ask, “Why?” I’ve found that at least my daughter doesn’t really care to dig deeper on a subject, she just wants to be involved in furthering the conversation. This is a good opportunity for me to dig deeper into something specific about the origin of the coffee or the processing technique. That part is fun for me.
But the best part – the one that nurtures us both – is my daughter gets to know a little more about one of my hobbies and have fun just spending time with her dad.
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Tyler Pawlak is a girl dad to one daughter (soon to be two). He is the co-founder of Blended Bean Coffee, which he runs with his wife, Jenna. The coffee roastery is bringing small-batch, transparently sourced coffee roasted with care to Cincinnati. He believes great coffee starts with great beans and a clear flavor profile direction so every blend we craft is designed to highlight bold flavors and uncompromising quality. No gimmicks, no mystery – just fresh, honestly roasted coffee.
