Happy Father’s Day to all you fellow Dads out there, and
especially to any compadres who have three daughters.
Happy Father’s Day to all you fellow Dads out there, and especially to any compadres who have three daughters. We’re … well, I should say my wife and daughter Mariah, are hosting a camp for nieces, nephews, the grandson and a few young children of close friends this weekend. At Camp Jennio, I have fatherly duties. BBQ on Saturday night (hopefully after a pre-Dad’s day golf game) and assisting with the picnic, hike and awards ceremony on Father’s Day. Awards ceremony … we haven’t had one of those in a while.
Now that we’re empty nesters, I’m not sure what this avalanche of energy enveloping our house will be like. Screaming, amped-up banshees will be running all over the place and there’s one feeling I’m sure I’ll remember quickly – the breathe-out serenity that descends and encircles when all the little ones are tidily tucked into bed.
It’s the circle of life, right? And we’ll be back in the saddle for the weekend on a part-time basis.
Being a parent never ends, of course, it just changes and the biggest change is the evolution of the relationship which slowly moves from parent-child into a dimension where the “rules” and the “roles” aren’t so defined and matter less and less. This is a good thing except when your daughter – the one who lived through all the baby bottle washings you handled – is trying to tell you a better way to wash the dishes. That prompts a revert-to-the-old-roles response – “I KNOW how to do the dishes, thank you …” replete with the requisite parental sarcasm.
But the truth is, once they earn a college degree, support themselves with a full-time job and, the pièce de resistance, give you a new role as a grandparent, the exclamation point is clear and the roles are reset. Actually, they start to reset before that if you’re lucky, it’s just that you really notice once they become a parent with all those responsibilities you had years ago. They have earned the right to define their own lives and you support, counsel and, most of all, love. Because what the Beatles sang back in 1967 “All You Need is Love” contains the same truth 44 years later.
When our oldest daughter went off to college at Loyola University in Chicago, we went to our first “parent session.” There was a Q&A with a mom who worked at the school and had put six children through college. She introduced herself, gave us her “professional credentials” and told us to ask away since she’d been through most everything.
Then, came her answer that caught me by surprise and really helped me quite a bit for the decade ahead. A parent stood up and asked, “When will I like my teenager again?” Everyone chuckled, everyone understood. She didn’t skip a beat with her answer. “26,” she said, “That’s when they start to get it.” She elaborated saying they begin to understand that they don’t know everything and that you might know something, they start to understand that you’ve made some sacrifices, deal with the reality of paying bills and what real worry is like.
I wasn’t prepared for “26,” at the time, but I understand it now and believe me, there’s enough truth in it to keep the number and the question floating around in your noggin in order to keep things in perspective. It’s not magic at “26” but a light that’s been flickering for a number of years finally stays on.
There’s another Dad story that stayed with me and helped out when a similar situation arose. It involved my late Aunt Nancy and her Dad. Nancy had decided to go away to college across the country to Catholic University in Washington D.C. My grandparents agreed and off went Nancy. Homesickness set in and she cried and begged and pleaded to come home.
My grandfather, Nancy relayed many years later, told her kindly that of course she could come home. She could work at the family business, Derry’s Feed and Fuel, as a bookkeeper/clerk and Nancy-of-all-trades. Reality set in, homesickness flew the coop. Sweeping hay off the floor and writing numbers in massive ledgers were not Nancy’s cup of tea. The years spent at Catholic U were great years for her and she became a wonderful fourth grade teacher, the kind of teacher that children came back to thank 20 years later. She was smart, tough, compassionate and became wise in the same way her father had.
I’ve been a very lucky Dad, blessed with three daughters who are all quite different. That’s made the journey a never-boring wonderland. When I look back and reflect on where we’ve been together, it’s quite a dandy kaleidoscope.
There were the great experiences in the STAR summer theater program at Gavilan College (it starts June 20 this year, the play is “Oliver” and you can enroll online) and soccer and camping and Little League and choir and field hockey and watching American Idol together and Giants games and college hunting trips and backyard BBQs … it’s quite a list and the list with each daughter is different because the interests and personalities vary.
It still amazes me how you have to adjust in order to nurture each child so that they grow and challenge themselves on the way to becoming the responsible, caring adult you’re aiming for. But that variation makes the journey a delight, though sometimes when you’re in the thick of running around with the kids at, say, 36, it’s not a perspective you have time to gather. I have gathered it in now, though, as I steam toward the golden years and it’s a good thing to appreciate on Father’s Day. My life’s work really has been as a father more than anything else.
What else is good to appreciate are the little things that manifest from what you’ve tried to impart – everything from hard work in the classroom to stepping right up to lend a hand with the dishes after a family party.
“Anything else I can do to help out?,” is a simple question, but it’s one that warms the parental heart. If your child is helpful, there’s a whole lot of right in what you’ve done. If not, well, talk to them frankly before they turn 26. It’s never too late to have a conversation. The parent-child journey is indeed a never ending story.
Reach Editor Mark Derry at ed****@****ic.com
