...(and that includes moms, uncles and grandparents) who may have had to do double duty as Dads. Hopefully your day today is a nice one at least half as nice as mine because if that is so you are having an amazing day. This morning I was thinking about what it means to be a father, and what it means to have succeeded as one and my thoughts included some along the lines of whether or not I turned out to be a good one. I figured I must have to some extent at least turned out better at it than my own real father had been to his chilldren. While that was more than enough satisfaction for me, since my father was a total loser in the fatherhood department, I also realized there was a much better way to gauge myself than by comparison to my own father who at best was a stranger to fatherhood. The method by which I would choose to judge how good of a father I may have been is to judge how good (no I do not mean how well) my children have turned out to be, what type of young adults they have become. That is, I mean, with me having been around to: watch them grow, guide them, love them, have fun with them, worry about them, ease their fears, suffer with them, help them get better, make them feel happy, enjoy things with them, teach them, achieve goals with them, see them achieve goals on their own, be proud of them and so on all toward an end of hoping they will be better parents than I ever could have been a parent to them.
When I look at them, I know I have succeeded in the fatherhood business. Yeah, I agree, my wife takes a lot of credit there too in the parenting department, maybe more than half of it. So, I will pat the both of us the back for doing well, but Mothers' Day has past and today is Fathers' Day. Looking at it today, from that perspective, I know I have done okay, even more than okay because my children have grown up to become to fine young adults who are, for the much greater part, respectful, moral, ethical, law abiding, industrious with a good work ethic, fair minded, freedom loving Americans. Yes, they have their sometimes less than desirable traits but those, combined with the many more numerous desirable ones they exhibit, are what make them who they are. They are the best two children any parents could have as I see them and I am sure Linda would agree with me on that one. My children make the whole meaning of Fathers' Day for me. Without them I would not be a father and without them being as wonderful as they have been then all of my Fathers' Days would not have been as wonderful nor as nice as hey have been but instead all would have been just another day. Let me assure you - because of my children, Fathers' Day is not just another day for me - it is great, one of the best days of each year.
All the best,
Glenn B
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