Category Archives: Fathers Day

Whenever I begin a new piece I look back at some or all of the other pieces I have written on the same subject. Not that I expect some great idea will suddenly come rushing out of my brain into my fingers and magically appear on my computer screen or in my notebook. That after all would probably be the sign of some well thought out well-adjusted person, something many of you that know me or have followed my writing long enough have given up thinking about me. Who am I kidding it takes only one time through my collected works to realize that my mind doesn’t always work in ways that some might call normally.
If you have been a follower of my writing you will no doubt remember that I was the product of a “broken home”. For those of you that are new here; I can assure you I was just that. I will say that I was blessed with two great father figures in my life one being my Grandfather and the other my being my Step Father. If I were to look into this I suppose I would find something that would make me think that my questions could be answered. That is not what I am going to do. I know it’s what you all want me to do. You want to watch me struggle to find the connection between the questions and the answers. You had better get the idea out of your head because that isn’t going to happen; at least I don’t think it is.
I had been thinking this year that maybe I would try and ask the question as to what made a good father. Then I realized that I couldn’t really answer that, but since when as that ever stopped me from asking questions that I had no answer to or that there was no answer to? You’re right it never has. Are there certain attributes that good fathers have that bad fathers don’t? Does it depend on our perception of what a good father is or is it on what society tells us makes him a good father? Can anyone say for sure?
You can say what you want about mothers and what they do for us as we’re growing up. I have been thinking that perhaps the male of the parenting perspective gets the raw deal in parenting. From being set up to be the bad parent when we needed to be disciplined to having to be the one to say no when we wanted something. Sure fathers have their moment and time. They are the ones we go to when we need something that can’t be given to us by hug, like that bicycle you wanted. Sure moms are great at cooking for us and cleaning up after us but it’s dear old dad that has to listen to us whine about a bike or video game that we want. He’s the one we go to when we want to get and advancement on our allowance. He is also the one we see when we decide that we no longer need those training wheels on that bike he bought us or when we need to find out what is wrong with our first car. Even if dad doesn’t know anything about these things we still go to him when they are wrong. We stub a toe, get a cut or need our favorite t-shirt or jeans washed before the dance is all mom territory. Need to find out why your car won’t run to get you to the dance you call on dad. Sure dads get a bad rap from TV and in real life as well male bashing has become a sport for writers and the like for years is it any wonder that dad is pushed further out of the picture today than he ever was before. Sure he was a working man that generally had little time to spend with his family, but wasn’t that his job, supporting us so that we could have the roof over our head and all those things that we wanted. We couldn’t always have everything we wanted, but we knew that it wasn’t because we were not loved.
There are times when you the child believe that your parent, in this case the father, isn’t perhaps the best in the world. Don’t worry you are not alone. Then again there are times when the parent, again in this case the father, doesn’t believe that you are the best child in the world. It’s something that we are all guilty of at least once in our time under his roof or within his range of supervision. I guess that is why this day is an important one in the history of man. At least it is in the men that are the fathers; for the kids, eh not so much. How is it that when we are brought up with our fathers knowing that one day when we will be parents that we turn into our parents? No matter how hard one may try we all turn into them in one way or another.
Perhaps I am not coming at this from the right angle. Then again I wonder if I can come at this from the proper angle. I am sure that I was one of those that fall into that category of not always being the best child I could have been. I did many things that made my life with my step father harder. I am sure that it isn’t something that was done deliberately but it happened. Could that have also affected my life and perhaps how I am/would be with my own children? Would that keep me from being a good enough father figure even? Is there any way that I would be able to redeem myself if in fact this is the case? Will I and those like me have the chance to do just that? We can look at short comings all we want, but in the end will that make us any better children to our fathers or fathers to their children, I don’t think so. Can we be better at what we are in spite of those short comings? Perhaps, that is just as long as we know where those short comings are we can be what we are meant to be. Whichever way it turns out is your short comings as a child or as the father that made it that way?
So to you my friends and family and family of friends I give to you Father’s Day in all its nakedness, figuratively speaking of course, laid open before your eyes to give us something to think about. Take time out on this day to make sure the old man is happy that he is a father. Take the grill out of his hands for the day and replace it with his favorite beverage. As always offer up a toast to him as well let him know that you wouldn’t have wanted to have grown up any other way.