Metamorphosis of fatherhood

I was watching a television show the other day and I really can’t even remember which program it was. Most of the time, my television is on a news channel or sports channel as background noise in the Pen City Current funhouse.
But I remember seeing a story line on an alcoholic who was attending AA meetings. At one of the meetings, he ran into another guy who he didn’t get along with, but in sharing stories, they realized they had something in common. They had both grown up without a father.
The two actors ended up becoming good friends as they both, as part of a relationship that started with the AA meetings, worked through personal issues.
One of the things that struck me was how hard it was to navigate growing up without a father. I did the same thing. My father died when I was a young boy. My mother and he separated and then divorced before I had any real recollections of his involvement in our life. So for most of our lives, it was mom doing both jobs. Our future stepfather was part of our lives early on as he and my mother had been friends before any of us were born.
That’s a different relationship. It’s not a father, but a surrogate and, many times, those surrogates become the real deal.
But there’s always that sense that you missed out on something. It can manifest itself as jealousy. That happened to me quite a bit. I had a friend in high school whose father took us both out on the river on occasion. I’m sure my buddy’s dad did that because my friend asked him to, and it was appreciated. But, in some cases, it made it worse. You knew you would never have that relationship. Nevertheless, the gesture was incredibly kind.
With my children, it really was a learning process for me. Most of my intuition on being a father came from my mother. There was a lot of hugging and movie nights with pizza or sandwiches sometimes all just huddled together in the living room. We would binge movies and, yes, inevitably I would end up asleep on a recliner or sofa, or even the living room floor. Most of the time I was working. I had a job where midnight wasn’t out of the ordinary. Running restaurants isn’t easy on the family. But it paid the bills. But in retrospect, making that a priority over spending time with my girls is a huge regret. My wife did a great job filling in. On days off, there were the regular chats around homework and grades, friends, plans, board games, and I guess that’s being a father. When Kelsey was diagnosed with diabetes and then with her heart condition, what being a father meant changed some, but not totally. When the girls became teens and then young adults, being a father changed again, but not totally.
Now with Taylor living in New York City, working hard and back in school for the third time, what it means to be a father changes again, but not totally. She has a boyfriend who has given me no reason to think he’s anything but a super dude. And each boyfriend she had redefined what it meant to be a father, because fathers have to adapt to each new personality that comes along.
Being a father, and this is all just to me as I would never preach to what the next guy thinks is the right way to parent, is a morphic process. We have to adapt to the needs of our children. But it’s what we signed up for. That process can be enlightening and rewarding and proud. It can also be heartbreaking and full of regret as we learn what in the hell it is we’re supposed to be doing at any given moment.
We make mistakes, but for the most part we know how to grill a steak. We make more mistakes, but we know how to fix a bike. And we make more mistakes, but we know how to bandage a skinned knee.
When being a father is a remote job, we learn that two-hour phone conversations are to be treasured when the time allows. We learn that spontaneous deliveries can put a smile on a face. We learn that the damned cellphone can be the connection to our children’s lives that our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents never had. I told a friend on the way home from a golf outing Friday that I think I could go back to land lines, and he quickly reminded me that we’ve come too far too fast, and the benefits far outweigh the hinderances. He’s right. I communicate daily with a girl who lives 14 hours away from me in multiple ways. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to live without that.
So on this Father’s Day, it’s probably a good idea to remember that we’re not perfect. Far from it on most days, but far too often we work hard to be perfect. That’s probably where we screw up the most. We want better for our children than we had for ourselves and that juice is worth the squeeze.
Being a good father is something that makes a mother smile. The children just see it as dad being dad. Fixing the bike, bandaging the knee, grilling the steak, and inviting all your friends over to help make memories. Now being a father, to me anyway, is all about making memories.
So today, make that memory, elicit that smile, and celebrate the body of work. Happy Father’s Day.
Speaking of memories, over the weekend, I played in a golf tournament in Oskaloosa benefiting the William Penn Statesmen, where my nephew Hayden plays football and baseball. On one hole, he set a golf ball on top of an aluminum can, got out an old 2-iron that his great uncle gave him, and hit that ball 223 yards straight down the fairway.
The can stood exactly where he left it – untouched. Never saw anything like that – but that’s Beside the Point.
Chuck Vandenberg is editor and co-owner of Pen City Current and can be reached at Charles.V@PenCityCurrent.com.