6 Key Points About Fatherhood

I remember my father lying in state. He passed away several years ago, and at his funeral, I made sure to go to the viewing. Having missed my mother’s funeral as a child, it was important for me to have a sense of closure. Touching his hand then was a pivotal moment in my own life.

Now, it is Father’s Day and I've lived my first decade as a father. I think about what I learned from my dad about basic human decency, and what I've gleaned from my own experiences.

Being a father is an important role, at times feeling like a job that needs to be done, at other times more like a form of play and a gift, but in many ways, the greatest privilege one can hope to have. A few things come to mind:

1. Be yourself: Trying to be someone else doesn’t work great, especially as a parent. My father didn’t always stick the landing—and in some ways, he wasn’t at all a fit for who I was—but I never had the sense he compromised his integrity or sense of authenticity.

He didn’t try to pretend he was someone else, nor did he expect me to be someone other than who I was. This left me with a core sense of self upon which I have been able to depend, a source of strength during hard times and generativity overall.

2. Show restraint: There are many choices we can make in life, and there are many times when we’d like to make a different choice but don’t have the wherewithal. We make mistakes, inevitably. There isn’t always a choice in making these mistakes—a moment of lapsed judgment, emotions getting the better of one, bad luck, whatever. But we do stand a chance of having a say in how we meet our own mistakes.

My father was very good at holding himself back during the hardest times, instilling a strong sense of thoughtfulness and embodying Keats’ concept of “negative capability”: "...that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.”

3. Be playful: While I remember my father most as a somber, sometimes annoyed businessman, dutifully toiling for the good of the family while setting aside many of his personal pleasures, I remember him best when he was being silly, showing his idiosyncratic personality, making funny faces or horsing around, demonstrating his incisive wit, and often wryly commenting on people and public events. He was refined in how he spoke, not going for the easy laugh, but his satirical sense was on target. He was occasionally spiritual—focusing on "the unknown"—with a sense of humility and wonder.

4. Don’t be embarrassed: "Be yourself," "show restraint," and "be playful" don’t always fit together neatly. There were times when my father, cut from a different mold than a lot of the other dads by virtue of being older and a child of the Great Depression, did things in front of my friends which I found embarrassing. I suspect he limited himself, but there were times when I was just mortified. He might tell me not to be embarrassed, which didn’t necessarily help, but it was clear what he thought.

Not only was this embarrassment too strong and generally unfounded, but it was also holding me back. It was really only as an adult that I realized, with very few exceptions, that embarrassment was often an arrow pointing toward what was most important. Almost every time I did something I felt hesitant about but knew in my heart was the right way to go, it worked out to my advantage.

5. Hold yourself accountable: Don’t blame yourself, but don’t let yourself off the hook (by the way, that expression is a fishing term, etymologically speaking). I think this old-fashioned value, instilled in me by my father more through instruction than punishment, has served me well—more with each passing year.

It’s a hard skill to learn and lost art, as it requires steady, single-mindedness of intent which is easy to lose sight in times of emotional turmoil. While it’s a common-enough prescription, the practice of accountability requires much more effort and candor than the sometimes easier (yet ultimately more painful) path of blame. We often went for long walks during which we could talk together and think. To this day, going for long walks continues to serve me well.

Embarrassment Essential Reads

Managing Embarrassment

Shaming Is an Aggressive Act

Delaying or completely foregoing the gratification of self-dispensed punishment over the more bracing experience of self-appraisal takes "gritty self-governance."

6. Follow your dreams: Ultimately, while my father set aside many of his youthful ambitions in being a good and dutiful son and father—making a choice to go into the family business rather than pursue his own profession—he spent his life after retirement doing what he loved. This meant playing bridge 6 or 7 days per week, a game he’d stopped playing early in life to attend to pressing matters. It was remarkable to see him take up a game he loved so much, with such intense joy and enthusiasm, without evening knowing it was something he had been into when he was younger.

More to say

These six ingredients are not a comprehensive list, but are the key ones which come to mind for me upon reflection today. There are things I still wish were a little different, and things I’ve only come to really understand or appreciate as a father myself. There are ways I can only hope to approximate the example he set, and ways in which I have worked out approaches which work better for me as a father. Ultimately, he taught me that we each walk our own path and to judge for oneself.

While others often have a lot to say, and we should always listen—it’s crucial to keep your own counsel. If we hear people out, we’ll have time to consider what they are offering and work out where it is coming from. Others don’t always know what they are talking about, and they don’t always have our best interests in mind. He taught me to try to be kind, even when people strained the bounds of credulity.

Having a clear sense of one’s own values, and the resolve to keep them in mind, not only leads to personal integrity but also goes a long way to safeguard against undue or misguided influence.