Fatherhood

Fatherhood. What a wonderful thing. What a great privilege as well as great joy to be given the responsibility of little people. To know that you are loved unconditionally and that there is such a thing as unconditional love; to reawake one’s own wonderment. To see the world through one’s own child’s eyes, once again experiencing the wind, or imagination, or reading Robin Hood for the first time, as we all did when we were little. Fairy dust on cereal. The birthday fairy on the night before your birthday. The tooth fairy. Santa Claus. Seeing a self built model fly for the first time. And the list is endless and wonderful.

I was noticing at Mass, this past Sunday, a young father and his brood, two girls and a little boy, all under five. They were squirming towards the end but he was attentive and softly disciplining them when need arose. And I noticed above all his kissing and hugging his kids, especially his son.

One of the essential elements of “freedom” is that confidence that comes from the core of a nuclear family. One has a more difficult walk towards freedom if one is missing one or both parents; or if one of the parents is abusive—and that abuse can be through a number of ways. I was discussing with a sales manager of a phone company in Portland a few weeks back about his family. He too had three kids that were fairly young. I asked him how much he worked. He replied every day except Christmas. That can be taken a couple of different ways. Hopefully, the reason he has to work that much is to support his family and that it was not a matter of climbing the corporate ladder. Too often, through my corporate career, I was told it wasn’t quantitative time but quality time that mattered in regards to being with the family and the kids in particular. That’s a lie. Kids want to know that you’re there—especially fathers. I know, I’ve had three of my own. It’s that knowledge that the father is there that adds to the security of growing up and eventually embracing that avenue of “freedom”. Too often I’ve run across men who have climbed the corporate ladder to all kinds of success and yet in the end have wondered why there is such a distance between them and their kids; that they lost the kids’ teenage years or toddler years, or whatever years. There should not be enough money in the world to tempt a father from spending the maximum amount of time with his children. And from a selfish point of view, what comes back for that time is tenfold of what was spent.

But for all who know me…..I’d hate to have anyone tempt me with a new Cadillac…..