My kids are so far away at the moment that not much was possible beyond a phone call, and we've never done presents on Mother's Day or Father's Day anyway, those are for Christmas and birthdays only, part of our general family stand against the commercialization of everything. We don't do Valentine's Day either. But I did get the calls and the good wishes from my children, one via Skype and one by phone, and that's all I need or expect.
And being of a philosophical turn of mind, I was thinking more broadly about fatherhood today, and was struck by an admittedly purely anecdotal observation. Among all the truly messed up people I've encountered in my life, from my days in high school, my personal and professional life as an adult, and the friends and acquaintances of my children, and my friends' children, I see one common factor. We all know the kind of messed up people I mean, the women with no self-respect who think the way to a man's heart is through his fly, the drunken, violent, under-achieving men... (Funny how often they find each other.) The common factor is an absent, abusive, or disengaged (or all three) father. In simpler terms, just a bad father. I also know lots of people with bad fathers who are okay, having one doesn't guarantee being messed up, but it certainly multiplies the odds and it does appear to work the other way, being messed up means you had a bad father. Possibly a bad mother too, but in most single parent families it's the father who's absent. So to all fathers and potential fathers I would say, stay the course guys, you DO make a difference, your children need you, be there for them.
, but that's kinda the trouble with anecdotal evidence, which is all either of us offered, you can never be sure whether you're really right or not. I'm sure there are examples of messed up people with good fathers and crappy mothers, and messed up people with two good parents, and excellent, well-adjusted people with two crappy parents, and all other possible combinations of good and bad kids and parents. Evolution pretty much guarantees such variation, but I've no idea what the relative incidence of those things is, and it's not what I've encountered. I just wanted to make the point that being a dad is important, and I'm sure you won't disagree with that.
