Richard Rayner, MD
In the early 1960’s RCA promoted its new color TVs as “the gift that keeps on giving.” One had to buy the television first of course, but then there was the promise of potential years of enjoyment. Fatherhood is like that, too. Like anything valuable, it takes effort, a cost, if you will, to enter into it and certainly work to sustain it.
As a young boy I imagined what it would be like to be a dad, as a teenager I doubted it would ever happen, and as a young married man I feared and longed for it simultaneously. Turns out that role has contained some of the most fulfilling experiences, strongest emotions, deepest joys, sharpest pains, hardiest laughs, and significant lessons of my life. I once heard a minister at a wedding say that marriage is a mirror, a situation where you see your true self more clearly than ever, warts and all. If marriage is a mirror, then fatherhood is a magnifying glass, aimed at you for better or for worse.
Like most things, in fatherhood we find a curriculum of sorts where one progresses from grammar, to logic, to rhetoric, and from the basics to the complex. Fortunately, most of the time we get to grow through one stage before heading into the next. The early years that I like to call the “custodial years” are full of lots of fairly simple tasks where we’re doing a lot of doing. Days are filled with chores that aren’t necessarily complicated nor do they take a great amount of brain power, but the duties must be done and the fatigue experienced by parents is primarily physical. Thankfully the weariness can be punctuated with lots of giggles, tickles, wrestling, and new discoveries.
Over time the effort shifts as the children become more self-sufficient. Later, things get more complicated with emotions and behaviors becoming more influential in day-to-day life. The exhaustion is not usually physical, but rather emotional. That emotional fire can get fanned by the winds of conflicting voices from outside that give advice to dads already dizzy with the shifting scenery. Fathers who find themselves seemingly surrounded by emotional flames can get paralyzed with fearing that anything short of perfection will result in disaster with no hope of redemption.
Dive In
The role of father is powerful in any stage. Sometimes fathers can be blind to the impact their words and actions can have on a daughter or son. Even when a child resists or rebels against direction given, the child’s underlying desire is to connect with and be loved by her dad. Fathers need to recognize that often resistance is simultaneously a plea for help. But sometimes we dads can feel threatened, responding impatiently or harshly, pressing too strongly with our words or actions, damaging the young reed trying to stand up in the winds of life. In the winds of turmoil, it’s nearly impossible to hear the inner voice of the young one ultimately saying, “Show me how to do life. I don’t know who I am even though I act like I do.”
Consider this analogy. A young man lives with his dad along a beautiful river. One day in frustration and anger over something (actually many things) his dad has said, the boy decides to take a primitive raft out on the river to get away from his father who is a skilled boatsman with excellent equipment and knows the river well. Downstream is a waterfall that means certain death for anyone who goes over it. There is a way to circumvent the falls, but you have to know the river, and like threading a needle, approach it just right in order to prevent disaster. The father quickly realizes what his son has done, stands at the edge of the river and repeatedly, frantically calls instructions to him. He is angry at the foolishness and bravado of the boy, yet realizes that his son needs his help to navigate the rough waters before the falls and to prevent him from going over the falls. The boy responds with obscene gestures and epithets. He can’t really even hear what his father is saying over the rush of the approaching rapids, and frankly doesn’t care to. While a fairly skilled sailor for his age, the boy has not yet learned to navigate this challenge successfully and is ignorant of the tragedy that awaits him. In recent times he also has lost trust in his father because his father’s words have not matched up with what he has done with the boy. He wants to be out on the river with his dad, but there’s so much pain and criticism to endure that he is losing hope for ever having those times again.
The father realizes that his putting off those lessons on the finer points of finessing that section of the river was a grave mistake. Instead of imparting the knowledge his son needed to navigate the treacherous stretch, he had left a gap into which the son could fatally fall. He recognizes that the only way for him to save his son is for him to dive into the river, swim to the floating vessel, hoist himself up on it and stand beside his son and show him the way to safety.
Things are moving fast, and there is little time left to contemplate further. He must make a decision to get wet, abandon his trust in his fancy equipment, which is of no use to him now, and risk his own life to save his son. The father has never been in this situation before and has no reference for how to perform. Then he remembers: he too was once in a near death situation, but no one was there to help. His own father had simply thrown out criticism without offering a helpful hand. He survived but still has aches and scars from it. But he knows he is his son’s only chance and wants to have this story turn out differently. The father takes a deep breath and dives into the cold rushing waters.
It’s About Time
Any father who paying even slight attention will be able to tell you that children want lots of things. It can seem like a never-ending list of stuff they want, from toys to experiences, often with budget-breaking price tags. It can be exhausting and disheartening for the father who would like to provide more but is restricted in some way. My observation though is that children mostly want time. They want our attention and to join in with them with whatever they love and value. They want to feel valued and no better way to express that than hanging out doing something together. The pretending to host a tea party, playing catch in the backyard, shooting hoops on the driveway, even watching a movie together is half about the activity and half about just doing it together. It conveys: “You matter.”
Early in my career as a family physician, I had a teaching job instructing Family Medicine residents and medical students. It was a tremendously rewarding experience though much less financially beneficial. However, the best part was that my schedule was reasonable especially for a physician. I was home every evening for dinner and had much more time with my sons than most physicians can say. I saw that as a benefit on which no monetary value could be placed.
My own father was a “pencil pusher” in his words, working a desk job as a corporate accountant. He was a good man, industrious, gentle, kind toward my mother and us kids, providing all we needed in a spirit of joy and thankfulness to God for the gifts he had been given. He was also very busy, at times working two jobs or participating in outside interests he felt were beneficial to others. But I wanted more of him. I treasured the times fishing – even the time I hooked him in the cheek! I loved Saturday errands when I would don my “dirty shoes” and accompany him to the lumber yard or hardware store to get the supplies for that day’s projects. As dementia slowly took him away from us in his later years, and even more so after his death, the longing to have had more time with him remains. Honestly, I enjoy any time I dream of him, even though in these dreams he is usually oddly small in stature, silent, unable to speak. Yet, I am overwhelmed with joy at the sight of him, moved to tears that he is there, but puzzled that he is more like the shell he had become rather than the joyful vibrant man I knew for so many decades. Still, I emphatically tell him in these dreams how much I love him and wish he were still here. I often awaken from these dreams panting with the intense emotions felt within the dream. Strangely, at those times I am simultaneously sad and content.
Dance On
Dads, this Father’s Day let’s recognize and celebrate the important role we have in the lives of our children. If we have participated in creating children, it’s not a question of whether or not we’ll be the dad, but rather how we will fill that role. First and foremost, we need to show up, be there, even when we don’t know how to do it!
The father role morphs over the years, and that means at times there is a dance we do with our children, trying to figure out the tempo and who’s leading. We all periodically feel like we have two left feet or just can’t get our groove on. Maybe you’ve been sitting out a lot of the dances due to fear of failure, or maybe as our dad in the story above, there have been obvious offenses for which you need forgiveness. Make this Father’s Day a memorable time of apologizing – that goes a long way – and start dancing again however slowly. Maybe you’ve been offended by your kids. This could be a time of honest assessment but then choosing to extend grace and mercy despite the hurts, covering over a multitude of sins with love. If times with your children have overall been good, maybe even great! – celebrate with thankfulness and dream of more great times to come.
Dive in or dance on!
