A decade ago I self-published a book as a gift to our sons. The book, Loving Fatherhood, is a collection of essays I had written to or about them across a quarter of a century. I am going to post some of these essays here, periodically. Of course some of them are quite dated (read: before the Internet!). So for each I list how old Travis, Drew, and I were at the time of the writing. I hope you enjoy them.
Randolph.
Preface
Dad 57 Travis 27 Drew 23
I’m a father. I am also a 57-year-old husband, friend, professor, golfer, Methodist, consultant, Capricorn. But mostly I’m a dad.
Further, I’m a lonely dad. Both of our boys have moved out of the house – one, Travis, has recently started his residency in family medicine at a hospital in Houston. His younger brother, Drew, is pursuing a one-year master’s degree in sports management as he enjoys his last year of eligibility as a Division 1 baseball player. Someone once told me that experiencing the empty nest is like being laid off from the best job you ever had. That captures it pretty well for me.
Once when Drew was a junior in high school I gathered up in my fist the front of the t-shirt he was wearing, pulled his face close to mine and said, “Listen to me. I am going to try to manipulate you to stay close to home. Do not let me do that.” (Maybe I had had a glass of wine.) Turns out the best offer he got to play baseball was at a school just 90 miles away, so I didn’t have to do any manipulating. Or at least that’s the way the story shall be told.
Of course it’s the right answer for 27- and 23-year-old men to be off living their own lives. I’d hate it if they were momma’s boys who were too timid to be off on their own. But that doesn’t stop me from being lonely. When I find out who taught these guys to think independently, heads will roll.
In recent years there have been several books about dads – books by famous dads (e.g., Fatherhood, by Bill Cosby [I said these essays might be dated!]), books extolling our aging or dead, brave and selfless fathers (e.g., The Greatest Generation, by Tom Brokaw), books about particular, great dads and their relationships with their (usually famous) kid (e.g., Big Russ and Me, by Tim Russert), collections of letters and essays to and about wonderful dads by grateful kids (e.g., The Wisdom of Our Fathers, Russert again), and books on what it means to be a dad today (e.g., The Fathers Book: Being a Good Dad in the 21st Century, by David Cohen). This book is not like those. My own father died when I was seven, I’m not famous, and if my sons have ever written essays on how great their dad is, I’ve not seen them.
This book is a collection of musings, written over a span of a quarter of a century, about how great it is to be a dad. It is a book – a series of essays, a poem, a coupla hymns, and a list – written to and about my sons. It is about how lucky I have been to be a dad, offered in hopes that you, my valued and appreciated gentle reader, will get to share vicariously some of the joy I have experienced, and you may (somehow, happily) even appreciate your own kid, or dad, in a slightly different and maybe more generous light.
There are a few themes that wend their way through these chapters. One is that I loved every stage of fatherhood. I loved that gummy little smile, and was not eager for those first teeth to appear. I loved that crawling around on their belly stage, and did not wait for that to pass so that they could walk and we could throw the ball in the front yard before I fully engaged in fatherhood. Heck, I even enjoyed changing diapers. “OK, this guy is mostly a woman,” you’re saying. Maybe so. People who know me best would agree. Rather than disqualifying me from writing a book on fatherhood, though, it is my hope that my androgyny might mean that this will be interesting reading for some women as well as for some men.
Another theme that runs through these pages is a rampaging humility on my part. My dear wife of 35 years, Cheryl, and I both believe that we got just dumb lucky to have two such great kids. Yeah, we tried hard, we read books and articles, and we loved ’em just as much as we knew how. But we know plenty of people who tried and read and loved just as hard who do not think themselves so lucky. So anytime you think you sense any bragging in these pages, please see it instead as just gratitude.
A final theme is simply a strong, abiding appreciation for these two boys as their own people. Don’t get me wrong – I did try to mold them to fit my view of what they should be. For several years with the first one, for less time with the second. But it quickly (well, kinda quickly) became apparent that that wasn’t working. So, as in the previous paragraph, any comments about how great my kids are should be read as just awe and appreciation, and not as my taking any credit.
It has always struck me as odd that you need a license even to catch a dang fish, but almost any fool can be a father. And so I stand before you as one fool who got lucky. There were trials along the way (as you will read, most of them just imaginary), and there were joys. Unimagined joys. But one thing that has been constant is, I loved, and love, being a father.
