50/50 custody, so I'm some version of a single dad. I think I'm doing ok-ish. The kids (4m/2m) are clothed, fed, and somewhat bathed (every 3rd day or so?). I get them to school everyday on time. I play with them as much as I can outside of responsibilities, but it feels like I'm always behind on cleaning. The house is a rolling state of disaster -- one room becomes clean while the others fall apart. It's like brushing teeth while eating Oreos. I'm always behind on laundry. I haven't really made their rooms "special" -- it's still white walls and barebones furniture/toys. My excuse is that I'm still going through the divorce process, and extremely cash-strapped, but there are cheaper ways of making a room feel more homely that I haven't pursued.

I yell at them too much. I'm channeling my mom and hate every second of that. I work on this hard in therapy, and have found some success in trying to keep a "no yelling" streak going. (I'm probably undiagnosed ADHD and love to gamify anything.) My top score is 13 days without raising my voice. But usually it's more like 3-5.

I'm not the best at planning. I took them to a creek for a few hours and we threw rocks in the water and dug in the dirt with sticks, but I forgot to sunscreen everybody, so we're all slightly pink now. My oldest is probably somewhat-ADHD like me, and he craves routine, and if there's anything I truly suck at, it's maintaining a consistent routine. My heart goes where it goes. Just the other night we stumbled on some string lights while cleaning. So I grabbed a hammer and nails and was carefully teaching my toddler to use a hammer at 9pm to string them up. He loved it, but the timing of bedtime was totally wrecked.

I just don't know how to measure myself. I see some really shitty dads who beat or belittle their kids, and I'm not there. But I've also seen quite a number of dad's who seem to have infinite patience. Mine runs out, about every 3-5 days. How do I know where I stand on the spectrum? And, I guess more importantly, how do I know when I've crossed the line from "holding high expectations of myself" to "trying to be unreasonably perfect in an unsustaining way"?