What Kind of Father Are You?

Oh to be young and growing up again. Not a worry or a care in the world. The biggest thing I ever worried about is getting enough of the guys together to play a game of baseball at the park. Those were the days.

I am fifty-eight years old now, and when I look back at those good old days, I think of my father. I never used to, but now that I've lived and raised my own children, I see how it was him who carried all of us on his shoulders. He did it silently and without rewards or fanfare. Sometimes because of his silence, I often took that as if he just didn't care. Now as I look back, that was the farthest thing from the truth.

For many years I looked at my father as if he didn't care about me or my brothers. I thought he just didn't like being at home with us. He never took us fishing. He never played catch with us. He never took us on a camping trip or did anything that other fathers did with their kids.

One summer there was a camping trip that all the guys that I hung out with in my neighborhood, were going on. Some of the dads were planning it and they were going to take about ten of us boys with them. It was a highlight of my childhood, but my dad was not there. He had to work. He always had to work.

He was a boss at the company he worked for. People had to report to him, and with this kind of recognition, went a lot of responsibility. He took his job very seriously, and he was very focused toward the task at hand, and he would work at it until it was done and done perfectly. That's why he was the boss and that's why he was so good at what he did.

Yes, maybe he did take his job as more a reflection of who he was, than his job of being a father, but that was before woman's movements and all the things that brought men into getting more in touch with their feminine side. There was no famine side in men back in those days, you were a man and you were supposed to be macho also.

I think my father and grand-father would roll over in their graves if they saw what has happened in our society today. Today, I clean the house, wash the clothes, and cook the meals, and my wife goes out and works in an office. My dad never did anything like that, ever in his life. Times certainly have changed.

It wasn't until about a year ago that a situation with one of my kids came up and I thought, all that I do and my kids don't know, and don't care, how much I have sacrificed for them to be where they are today. They are ungrateful and so selfish in their dealings with me and their mother...then it hit me. That's exactly the way I was toward my father and he never said anything about it.

My father...the silent one... who did what he had to do, and worked with what he had to work with so that we could have what he never had. How ungrateful and selfish I was. Have I learned anything in the fifty-eight years that I've been on this earth? What kind of legacy have I left for my children?

I realize now that my father loved me and all of us, and he did what he could with what he had. Yes he wasn't perfect...none of us are, but his heart was with his children. He never got to see my kids or his grand-kids because cancer took his life when he was just fifty-six years old. He never got to see the fruits of his labor. He was a good man and a good father.

My father never knew his dad. He had a step father that took care of him and his needs for life, but never cared to develop a relationship with him. He never played catch with him, nor did he ever take him fishing.

My dad never had any brothers. He had two sisters and I sure felt sorry for him, because my aunts are not easy people to get along with. I couldn't imagine having to live with them.

My father had no role models and no one to help him know what a good father was supposed to be like and what he was supposed to do. He thought working hard and providing for our needs was being a good dad. He didn't know very much about relationships.

I know that I disappointed him so many times and I never got the chance to sit down with him and tell him that he did a good job. I wish he could see his grand-children and great-grand-children. I bet he would take them fishing, and play catch with them in the front yard. He would have been a good grand-father.

Lots of us come from dysfunctional homes and it's so easy to point the finger and blame others for what we did or didn't do. I don't care what your background is, call your father, go visit him, and let him know that you appreciate him. Set down and talk with him. Let him know that you care. Time is ticking away. You don't know how much you have left.

Don't focus on the negatives because you have them as well. What kind of father are you?

Happy Fathers Day Dad. I love you.