“When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years,”* Mark Twain
If you are fortunate enough to have been raised by a good father, then you have been bestowed an invaluable gift. If your clan’s pater familias was more than merely present, but found ways to encourage you, guide you, provide for you, protect you and model proper behavior, you are indeed blessed. Yes, it is easy to say what makes a father insufficient: absence; indifference; violence and such, but those qualities that coalesce as “good fathering” are the subject of much greater debate. They have been the topic for discussion perhaps as long as the institution of fatherhood has existed.
In “The Laws” Plato provides disciplinary advice to fathers, “[O]f all animals the boy is the most unmanageable … he must be bound with many bridles … he who comes across him and does not inflict upon him the punishment which he deserves, shall incur the greatest disgrace.”
A world away, Confucius admonishes fathers to remember the wonder of the world as seen by children, “A truly great man never puts away the simplicity of a child.”
Somewhere between the poles of disciplinarian and playmate, good fathers are forged: a firm hand to guide and a strong back upon which to ride. Fathers may not always know best, but the best fathers know how to help you figure it out. To this point Umberto Ecco once wrote, “I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren’t trying to teach us. We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.”
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
In this we see that play and discipline are not discrete spheres. Good dads know this. The road to rectitude is less a forced march to a certain destination than a purposeful stroll dotted with nourishing stops. Just as a dad need not have all the answers, he doesn’t always have to follow the map. In fact, the irregular meander may hold the most promise for teaching.
Without wandering into Dan Quail’s infamous Murphy Brown minefield, we can acknowledge that the public regard for fathers ain’t what it used to be. We all cede the importance of mothers. We call the spinning blue sphere “Mother Earth,” but to speak of “the Fatherland” evokes images of terror. Dads are too often relegated to the status of social accessory — this guy who comes to visit now and then — maybe. This dubious trend betrays that fathers are not merely a donor of genetic material whose part in the equation is fleeting. Fathers are the second bookend, the yang to yin, the counter balance to mothers… while they often self-select out of the family, fathers are a necessary institution. Their absence burdens the larger enterprise.
While life can turn cruel and rob us of our fathers, too often we fail to recognize their significance while he’s still across the dinner table. Occasions such as Father’s Day serve to remind us that we who have good dads are truly fortunate. It wouldn’t kill us to let him know we think so.