Father’s Day Thoughts
This is a collection of quotes and humor about fatherhood to celebrate USA Father’s Day or Fathers and our love for them. This could go in religion, creative writing, society, general, domestic, women: which do I choose?
The first edition of “The Capital Idea” Newsletter comes out on Father’s Day, 2009. I am going to write about fatherhood, because 2 of my first 3 grandkids will be born literally and figuratively “between today and Thanksgiving (June 1st for one and Nov 16th for the other)”.
Let’s start with a father’s “importance”. I think we’re important, but I felt shocked when I read this saying by Anne Sexton: “It doesn’t matter who my father was; it matters who I remember he was.” I quickly emailed my oldest son (on his birthday…) and invited him out for a hamburger and promised him I wouldn’t “talk about anything hard and me-like”. Funny thing: he accepted! It reminded me of something I once heard in church: “Any man can be a father. It takes somebody special to be a dad”. I hope I get this one right.
What is “a father’s impact”? Freud said “I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father’s protection”2. Others quote Joseph Addison’s lament, “that he delights in the misery of others no man will confess, and yet what other motive can make a father cruel?”2 Are fathers are less apt to be cruel than to be bewildered.
“Ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath; but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” Ephesians 6:4
I think my job as father is to love, help, and provide. Most fathers’ methods seem to be Confucius’: “the father who does not teach his son his duties is equally guilty with the son who neglects them”2. Fathers seem to equate “teaching the son” with “weeding the garden during the growing season” and sometimes they accidentally step on the tender “plants” in the process….But I believe, from my own life, ”the most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother” Anonymous.
What are some of the mistakes fathers make? These quotes come through the voices of family members:
- “A father is always making his baby into a little woman. And when she is a woman he turns her back again”2 Enid Bagnold
- “The fundamental defect with fathers is that they want their children to be a credit to them”2 Bertrand Russell
- “Archie, I wish I had a hearing aid so I could turn you off”1 Mike Stivic “All in the Family”
Bill Cosby said about fatherly mistakes, “If the new American father feels bewildered and even defeated, let him take comfort from the fact that whatever he does in any fathering has a fifty percent chance of being right”2. How can we help Dad increase his at-bat percentage? Consider the following:
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