An Early Father’s Day Post

Well, the time has come.  Yet another in a series of manufactured holidays intended to encourage us to go out and spend money we don’t have on stuff we don’t need.  Luckily women have it much easier than men most of the time when it comes to gift shopping.  Tools or small personal electronics and you can’t go wrong, right?

Well since father’s is rapidly approaching I thought it was post-worthy.

I’m a dad.  Three times actually.  And I think it’s safe to assume that despite all my failings I’m a better father than my father EVER was.  I celebrate my fatherhood every time my kids damn near break their necks running upstairs to greet me when I get home from work.  I celebrate my fatherhood with every one of my 14 year old son’s straight-A report cards.  I celebrate my fatherhood when after a full day I relax on the couch with my younger two son’s perched on top of me watching cartoons.  And yes, I celebrate fatherhood every time I turn down work to spend time with my kids.

This post is not for me.

“You know, Mrs. Buckman, you need a license to buy a dog, to drive a car – hell, you even need a license to catch a fish. But they’ll let any butt-reaming asshole be a father.” -Tod (played by a much younger Keanu Reeves in the movie “Parenthood”)

This was exactly my dad, carried to ten decimal places.  Not because he was a particularly mean person, but he thought that his responsibility as a father was to bring home a paycheck, and that his responsibility ended there.

He was Archie Bunker from “All in the Family”  Racist, Sexist, Arrogant, sitting in his easy-chair and smoking his cigars and driving his Lincoln Town-Car.  The type to drop me off at Little League practice but that in my entire life has never once seen me swing a baseball bat, let alone helped me to learn to hit.

My father ignored me, and he couldn’t figure out why I acted out (to get attention) and when I was older and I did he would give me $20 to go to the movies so he could take a nap in his easy-chair.  (Lesson learned: being annoying pays-off – took a LONG time to break that habit.)  He’d watch sports on TV but never bothered to see me play. (Lesson learned – people on the TV are more important than people in front of him)

This post is not for me.

I am looking for neither pity nor sympathy.  It was my life, I got through it, and became a better parent than my dad could ever have dreamed of being.  There is the argument that I wouldn’t be who I am today without him (There are positives and negatives in that statement) but it’s bullshit.  I am who I am today despite him.

This post is for the “Fathers” out there.

Don’t be a “Father.”  Instead try being a “DAD”  Your first job is to be a husband and Parent, *NOT* to make money.  I could have cared less as a kid if my dad drove a ratty old Toyota instead of his new (every other year) Lincoln, as long as he used it to drive to Little League and gave a shit enough to hang around and root for me.

Don’t be a “Spouse” be a “HUSBAND” – marriage/family is a partnership.  Not a “you  have your job and I have mine” partnership, but a “both of us do what needs to be done regardless of how fucking tired we are” kind of partnership.

My parents spent the last 20 years of their lives miserable, living in separate bedrooms because my mom HATED him but he had kept her so dependent on him she didn’t know how to exist outside of the sham that was their marriage.  (She was also the one that made the call to pull the plug on him when he was dying, I’m never certain if there was more than his failing health to that decision, and I never asked – though I wouldn’t think less of her if there was.)

When you come home from work and your kid runs down the hall to give you a hug, FIND THE ENERGY to pick him/her up and play with them for a while.  You’ll have enough time to be tired later.  These are the moments they’re going to remember for the rest of their lives.

Remember that your son’s are looking to you to see what being a man is all about.  Your daughters are looking to you to see what kind of man they want to look for when they grow up.   DO NOT fuck that up.  (My sister has been married I think seven times, always to the same type of guy)

Remember that if you don’t pay attention to your kids now, there *WILL* come a time when they won’t give a rats ass about you. (Out of six kids, two actually showed up at my father’s funeral, only because they happened to live in the same state I believe – I didn’t go and I really don’t care one bit that I didn’t.)

And yes, while being a provider/breadwinner for your family is a good thing, it’s not the ONLY thing.   Being the provider for a family means NOTHING if you’re not there for them when and how it counts. (Emotionally as well as physically)

And if you’re idea of a good father’s day is for the wife to take the kids out and leave you alone in the house all day, well fuck you.  Do your family a favor, take out a life-insurance policy and jump off a bridge, because you’re no parent.  You can’t celebrate being a father by spending the day NOT BEING A FATHER.

That is all.