"Luke, I am your father"

Okay, this entry’s tag line is a sad attempt at trying to be culturally relevant or timely. This article has nothing to do with the recent release of the last Star Wars movie “Revenge of the Sith” but if it does generate some hits…

My two oldest kids are taking a nap in the room that shares a wall with my study. As I type this I hear them “sleeping.” Of course, I don’t mind that they only sleep for 1 or 2 hours of their 3 hour naps. The end result is the same. If I have to tell you what the “result” is that I’m referring to then you are obviously not a parent.

This morning Nathan, Anna, Abby and I were playing Taboo. Our version of Taboo involves a lot of buzzing and spreading the cards all over the floor and of course fighting over the buzzer. Between fights Nathan tells Anna “I love you Anna.” I hear this and my heart grows by two sizes. Nathan then turns to me and says “Daddy, its nice to tell people we love them.”

I agree with him and tell him how much I like it when he loves his sisters. “Everyone likes to be told that someone loves them,” I conclude my spiel.

“Cept bad guys,” Nathan adds.

“Even bad guys want to be told that they are loved. In fact, I think that’s why a lot of bad guys become bad guys, no one ever tells them that they are loved.”

When they “nap” I finish watching “In Good Company,” the recent movie with Dennis Quaid and Topher Grace. A good film that I’d recommend though this article isn’t a review of the film, I’m just trying desperately to increase my hit counts …

So in “Company” Quaid and Grace develop a unique father / son, mentor / mentee, master / padawan relationship. The best line is when Grace is describing his father, “my dad was an ‘artist’ slash druggie, he was in a cult for awhile…” and left when I was five.

Yesterday (5/20) at school I held a yearbook party for the yearbook staff. I had 35 kids attend, which is amazing because I don’t know why any of my students would want to hang out with me AFTER school – I can and am often times a cranky, hurried jerk. And yet throughout this year I’ve had students who come before and after school to help me with the yearbook, basketball club and even to help clean up my class.

Anyway, so the party is winding down and I’m talking to a couple of my students. I ask one of them about her father (I know her parents are divorced) and she says that he took them to a carnival when she (and her twin) where five and left and she hasn’t seen him since.

“If I could do it all over again” gasps the elderly dying man surrounded by his loving family “I would have abandoned you when you were kids and lived life for myself.”

Add that monologue to the list of lines one will never hear, and yet people (mainly men) make similar choices every day. What are they thinking? I just don’t get it. A father leaving his kids?! And no offense to other kids but this girl and her sister are good kids … great kids really that would make any father proud. So why would a man leave his family, leave his children?

I empathized with my student, even though what I wanted to do was bad mouth the negligent father (I didn’t because I don’t think that would have helped this student – the man is still her father even if he is a bad father), and said some lame stuff to try and help her. How do you respond? It was just unfathomable. I tried to use some of my own stories as a father and asked about her step dad who seems like a much more likable person. I related how I call my wife’s step parents (both her parents are remarried to great people) Mom and Dad because I think that that is what they have been and are being to my wife and our family.

The long and short of it is being a father is hard work. But it is the best work a man can have, and in the long run it is the most meaningful work. So why do so many men neglect and abandon their children?

I won’t try to answer that question tonight. Besides any reason is really just a cover to mask that man’s failure to be a man and a father.

So instead of cursing the dark, I guess the more appropriate question is what kind of father am I going to be? What kind of father are you going to be? Not what kind of father am I NOT going to be? Comparing oneself to dung will make anyone smell and look good. Comparing oneself to the perfect father won’t be flattering but it will be a challenge and make a man a better father.

In the end I want to be the best father to my children and a model of what a good father is to everyone else. Not the most poignant ending to an entry, but the most appropriate prayer.’,’‘, ‘1′, ‘1′, ‘2005-05-26 23:40:00′, ‘0′, ‘0′, ‘0′, ‘2′, ‘0′);