Being a father is something it would be good to have a trial run at. Unfortunately, whoever designed the rules for life didn’t build that option into the equation. You are either a father, or you are not. It’s not like the Olympic time trials, or anything like that. They don’t give you a qualifying meet, or a practice run to hone your skills, your timing, or your understanding of the event. You’re just not a father one moment, and then you are. It happens that quickly. Oh sure, some men practice by getting a dog, or by sitting for an hour with a friends baby while she gets her hair done, and that’s helpful, but lets face it, that’s not even pretend fatherhood. That’s really just pet ownership, and momentary baby watching.
But, although there is no real substitute for actually being a father, there is a School of Fatherhood. It’s called ‘the experience of your own father’. Problem there is, you’ve got to be discriminating and choose the school very carefully. Like with communities, there are some good schools, there are some bad schools, and there are some really bad schools. Some people move their families miles away from their active lives just to live in a district where there is a really good school. Because, the thing is, whichever school you end up attending, you’re going to learn something there. You’re going to learn some really good things in a good school, and you’re going to learn some really lousy things in a bad school. Sure, you might learn a little bad from the good, and a little good from the bad, but the over-riding influence is going to coincide with the nature, and character, of the particular environment. There’s no way around it.
And so it is with ‘the experience of your own father’. There are some good ones, and some bad ones. There are some loving fathers, and some brutal ones. There are complete fathers, and some broken ones. Some are well meaning, while some are rife with indifference. There are those who do the very best they can, and those who gave up that struggle a long time ago. A child who wakes up daily to a good, loving, well-meaning, and motivated father is going to have those qualities instilled in him/her from an early age. I think we all know that. And, unfortunately, the converse of that is equally true. The experience of one’s own father is one’s primary education in fatherhood. It is both one’s training, and one’s blueprint for actually being a father himself. Those who have been fortunate enough to have good fathers need only make minor adjustments in the practice of fatherhood to be equally successful in the role. However, those who have grown up with fathers battling personal demons, driven by ambition, crippled by alcoholism, or beaten down by life, are likely to spend many years, as young fathers, just trying to sort out what being a father actually means. That’s a lot of negative reinforcement to get past in order to get to the magnanimity of fatherhood. Yes, magnanimity. In my mind, it is the best conceivable definition of fatherhood. Magnanimity: ‘Great generosity or noble-spiritedness’. Magnanimous: ‘Very generous, kind, or forgiving’. Qualities that actually contain most of the other character traits a child would want in a father.
It seems to me that children absorb their mothers, but tend to study their fathers. I know, that can be construed as a really sexist, and controversial, statement, but that opinion does not make it any less true. The image I have is of a child breast feeding (absorbing his mother), while looking across the room at this strange man (studying his father), wondering who he is, and what he’s doing here. All the while, the child thinking, “I better keep an eye on this guy.” And he/she continues to do that throughout his/her development, and throughout the father’s life. The mother, being more accepting by nature, is generally more accepted and embraced by the child for just being mom. That’s what the child has learned. But dads become more the standard by which children measure themselves, and the example (positive or negative) through which the child sees the world. And I AM going to say something controversial now. I believe the same is true of the male, and of the female child. I believe that children expect, and most often receive, acceptance from the mother, but seek approval from the father. With the incredible absentee rate of fathers in the home today, is it any wonder that so many young females are growing up to be personally, and socially, out of control? Being out of control has long been the semi-exclusive domain of boys, and young men, who have imitated irresponsible fathers, or who have failed to receive the approval necessary for their development as men, and potential fathers themselves. Girls, and young women, however, seem to be rapidly surpassing boys, and young men, on the recklessness chart.
Fathers Day is a good time to, not only honor your own father, but to reflect upon the kind of father you would like to be. It is a good time to give pause, to consider the particular School of Fatherhood that you attended, the impressionable experience of your own father. It is a good time to commit to the example set by him, were he a good one, or to reject the model he may have created for you if he were not. Take portions of who he is, and discard others, if that is what works for you. In any event, there are fathers in, or around, your life who may not necessarily be your own, but men you can emulate, men you can know will enable you to be a father of profound, and honorable, influence for your child.
And that is what’s important.
