Father's Day

[Debra]

Fathers Day naturally brings memories of my father. Though he died shortly before my 8th birthday he had and still has a strong influence on my life.
Neither my mother nor my father ever treated me as a child per se. I was treated as a person who had not yet learned certain things, and my quest for knowledge was always indulged.
My father would often buy me books. I can remember how exciting it was to come downstairs to breakfast and find a book waiting there for me. To this day I have a love of books and of reading. For me one of life’s small pleasures is the smell and feel of a brand new book.
Having fought in the Second World War both my parents while having a strong sense of duty, also taught me to question those in authority.
My father felt that the only way to avoid the atrocities of the war was to keep our leaders accountable to the people at all time and in all things. In some ways I am glad he is not here to see the way the current leaders are behaving. I know that he would feel his efforts in the war had been squandered.
My father also taught me the value of truth. He would say that adherence to honesty forces you to think about your thoughts and actions. Many of those currently in power could use this valuable lesson.
Though he came from a time and place where he may well have been excused for not being so he was a great feminist. He thought sports as important for girls as for boys, he thought education a must for girls he felt it gave them a chance to see a future outside of marriage and childbearing. Not of course that he had anything against marriage or children, however he thought it wrong for young girls to see that as their only option.
I miss my father most especially on this day, the lessons he hadn’t yet taught, the stories he hadn’t yet told, most of all on this day I miss the love he gave me.

Happy Father's Day to all the dad's and especially to Mike who not only is a great dad to the four children we have together but took on a ready made family of myself and two kids and never made any difference between them.

[fern hill]

Both your father and Mike sound like good guys, Debra.

My father, while mostly a fuck-up, was also a weird sort of feminist. He was Merkin and admired the Kennedys. One day, out of the blue, he looked at me and my sister and said: 'You could be President and Attorney General.'
I was surprised. This had never occurred to me. He was dead serious.

[skdadl]

Here's tae Mike! As one of the cousins always says, "There'll be nae puir bairns in this family."  :)

And here's tae my Thorfinn, and to my dad too, both of them gone now in person but still so powerfully present in so many people's lives.

My dad was born a hundred years ago next February. The first sentence of the memoir he wrote in the 1970s reads: "I have always been a dreamer."

When I first read that line, it jolted me, because I was so used to thinking of my dad as the trad dad, head of the household, paterfamilias, ultra-responsible -- and he was that, no question. He took on that role in the forties because he believed he should, he was supposed to, and he did it super-well. I didn't understand, though, until my thirties that, like all of us, I guess, he had a private notion of himself that he was storing away for the day he would be free to let it loose again.

That changed my notions of my parents in a good way, I think. I stopped thinking of them as another generation, vaguely alien, and began to understand them better just as people. And it brought forward many of my best memories of my dad -- the sense of adventure he gave us as little kids, of how big the world is and how we can take so much of it in if we want to.

He was a very kind and gentle man who never wanted to be anyone's boss, much as he believed in learning to discipline oneself. It was one of the great discoveries of my thirties to begin to see him that way and to clear all the stereotypes out of my own head.

[skdadl]

I just scandalized some blog readers with this, and I thought it was worth a repeat here, with a more appreciative audience. Can we ever have enough Cole Porter, I ask you.


My Heart Belongs to Daddy
by Cole Porter


While tearing off a game of golf,
I may make a play for the caddy,
But when I do, I don't follow through,
'cause my heart belongs to Daddy!

If I invite a boy some night
To dine on my fine finnan haddie,
I just adore his asking for more,
But my heart belongs to Daddy!

Yes, my heart belongs to Daddy,
So I simply couldn't be bad!
Yes, my heart belongs to Daddy,
Da, Da, Da, Da, Da, Da, Da, Da, DAAAAD

So I want to warn you laddie,
Though I know that you're perfectly swell,
That my heart belongs to Daddy,
Cause my Daddy, he treats it so well.

[Gigi]

Well. my dad died in 1991, and I was shocked to realize in January that it has been 15 years now.

He was technically my "step-dad" - he married my mom when I was 2-ish, and I still regret that awful thing I said, as teenagers are wont to do, that infamous, "you can't tell me what to do, you aren't my real dad."

I think it is the one thing in my entire life that I wish I could take back.

I also hold him responsible for my obstinacy, or should I say "tenacity"?  I don't remember him ever saying that there was anything I couldn't do, and in fact I remember him challenging me anytime I made that claim.

Man, if only he could see what a monster he created ;-)

[fern hill]

Yes, let's not forget step-dads. One came into my life when I was about 12, not a good time. My mother was having one of the earliest menopauses on record (at age 36) and I was hitting puberty. Hormone hell from either end.

The poor man. I too said rotten teenager stuff to him.

Just before he died though we had some nice times together. He was not well-educated, but he had a speculative, inquiring side to him that drove my mum nuts. He and I would sit out on the balcony, look at the stars, and talk about stuff. And have a couple of beer.

To step-dads!

[faith]

I love my dad with all of his faults- dreamer, procrastinator, shitdisturber with a horrible unpredictable temper, and all of his good qualities, encouraging, fun, athletic, intelligent and loving.
He died in 1989 and I miss him still.

[Toedancer]

Lord but you guys are making me squish.
My dad died when he was only 49, in the 70's sometime, I was 24. I don't miss who he was at all, as a man with my mother. He was abusive as hell. But I do miss his incredible energy, his mischeivous (sp?) green eyes, his sending mink coats that had to be returned (when he was away working), his nerve of smuggling furniture (Danish) from the St. Clair River, his Red convertible sports car, his not allowing me in the White Room ( but yet encouraging me to jump from the upper open hall on top of the white couch) to get into it. His having his license removed forever, yet the Dept. of Transportation paying him to train transport drivers how to get out of jacknives and such, teaching me how to divine as is the family history. Smoking his first joint with me on a boat.

But you know what? Good steadfast step fathers are much better. They take the abuse of teenagers and young women because they love our mothers so very much. Yay to 2nd and 3rd marriages for women with chilodren.

I am raising a Tall Boy for the Vietnam fathers too, my dad situated so many of them.

[Alix]

I got to see my Dad for supper last night, and he did the first barbecue of the season. It seemed unfair that he would have to get supper on Father's Day of all days (he's the main cook in my family), but his hamburgers are never to be passed up. And my sister made the rest of supper.

He is quiet, a deep thinker. Sometimes I think I got to know him best when I was old enough to lobby for and get the front seat on long car trips (my mother tends to nap during car trips). We would talk for hours.

He has spent his life working with people with handicaps, and trying to be a good advocate for them. He has written some papers recently that I think have thrown quite a shock into the world he works within, building upon some of Northrop Frye's work to argue for a new way of conceptualizing relationships with people with disabilities, to change the dominant paradigm from advocates finding unmet needs, and thereby perceiving people as just a bundle of needs,  to using literature, metaphor and mythology as a means to understand and identify with people with handicaps.

He also has one of the longest beards in the known universe.

[chcmd]

Reading the posts above warms my heart.  Appreciate those dads of yours, they sound wonderful.  Let them know how wonderful they are and how much you love them.

Mine is a total devil-spawn slash sociopath.

So appreciate what you have  :wink:

[skdadl]

I call that straight talk, chc, and I appreciate it.

I think it's important to cut through some of the sentimentality surrounding families in North America. When families go bad, that can be the worst, absolutely the worst, and the official happy myths can just make things harder for people who are already facing a tougher reality.

Alix, I would so love to read some of your father's work. Please let me know whether that is possible. I think you know that I have been struggling to think from the inside for a few years now -- I'm sure your dad is on the right track, or at least he's finding a better path, one I would think is better.

[Mandos]

I have somewhat mixed feelings about Father's Day and Mother's Day, and not because of problems with my father and my mother.  At worst, I have no more than the average number of problems with them.  My spoilsporty commercialization-queasiness takes over, I'm afraid.

It's true that Christmas is probably more commercialized.  But even as a non-Christian, I still willingly feel (as do many Muslims, by the way) the awe in the traditional roots of the celebration and the symbolism and pomp and solemnity of it, as well as the joy of the songs, et cetera.  I *like* watching mass on TV.  It's fascinating.  My devout great-aunt, very, very Muslim, when she visits from Pakistan, is also willingly swept up in it---not because she has any desire to be a Christian, but because of her own reverence for Jesus and the chord it strikes when Christians celebrate Jesus.

But Mother's Day and Father's Day, well, I feel a bit cheapened by the idea that Canadian Tire thinks that I can validate my relationship with a new toolbox for Dad or something.  And the roots of awe just aren't there to save it for me.  I prefer my parents birthdays to celebrate them.  My parents are also similarly allergic to MD and FD.

[Alix]

skdadl, I don't know if what's he's published is in accessible sources, or just Citizen Advocacy papers, but I will see what I can do to get my own hands on some of it. :)

I suppose it is commercial, a bit, but I always enjoy it anyway. My traditional Mother's Day present is taking my mother out for dinner and a movie, which will probably happen tonight.

[skdadl]

Alix, I would really appreciate that. You can tell your dad why I'm interested, and also pass on my promise that I am trained to respect my sources, above all.

It was really interesting to me to hear that he has found inspiration in Frye's poetics. I have too in the past, although I'd never made a connection between Frye specifically and the practical pondering I've been doing the last few years. I have thought that people trained to craft-consciousness, which includes poetic consciousness, are very good at turning to empathy rather than conventional "therapy."