The Failure of American Fathers

Sunday marked the day a grateful daughter held the first Father's Day celebration at a YMCA in Spokane, Washington 108 long years ago.

Sonora Smart Dodd wanted to honor of her father, Civil War veteran William Jackson Smart, a single parent who raised his six children. And so we have Father's Day.

Sadly, we fathers are not so smart these days and our failures make headlines nearly every day.

I look at the cards we send, the phone calls we make, and the sentiments we share and I shake my head in disbelief.

I consider all of the things dads are supposed to be to our families and, by extension, our greater world-wide family of humanity -- protector, provider, teacher, comforter-in-chief, fair-minded, selfless, generous, providing a good example -- and I find us failing miserably, particularly here in America.

Consider, the majority of our elected officials are men, and most of them are fathers as well, so it is on we fathers that the weight of this nation's failures rest.

Hopefully, the wave of women running for office in these mid-term elections will tip that balance and help to make this nation a kinder, more nurturing place. It cannot come soon enough.

But in the meantime, look around at the country we fathers have built.

On Sunday, an article I wrote about what the prevalence of school shootings has made normal in our schools was published in The Mercury.

I knew when the fathers of this country failed to take any action on gun control after the massacre of Sandy Hook Elementary School children in Newtown, CT that nothing would change; that if image of slaughtered children, of parents grieving could not motivate our nation's fathers, nothing would. 

And nothing has, despite shooting after shooting after shooting. We throw up our hands and say "what can we do?"

We're fathers. We're the ones who are supposed to do something.

But as I looked into those devilish details of what the alternative to taking action means, our failure became more painfully apparent.

Because American fathers love their guns more than their children, kindergarten students at Lincoln Elementary School are no longer surprised (or terrified) when they hear there is an armed intruder prowling the halls who wants to shoot them. 

Rather than running screaming through the halls, like any normal person might, they calmly barricade themselves in a classroom, or silently slip through the halls when their teacher gives them the signal.

For them, it's routine, and they drill for it three times a year.

Think about that for a minute, our children practice dealing with a gun-toting murderer in their school; the place they are supposed to feel safe, cherished.

They drill like they would for a fire which, Lower Pottsgrove Police Chief Mike Foltz sadly noted, is now statistically less likely than an armed intruder shooting them in school. 

How can we have normalized that? As fathers, how can we have accepted that our kids have to drill to keep from being shot in school? Because we have failed them as fathers, that's why.

Some believe the answer is more guns in schools. If the answer to any problem is "more guns in schools" we have failed as fathers.

We are, depending upon our politics, watching, allowing or actively encouraging hate to once again take a place as a legitimate reason for policy. 

That unthinking hatred drives the headlines I read about children being separated at the borders from their fathers and mothers, who committed the crime of seeking a better, safer life for their families -- like so many of our fathers and grandfathers did before us. 

I cannot begin to imagine what that would do to me, to be separated from my son when he was young as we undertook an act of desperation in search of a better life. He clung to us when we tried to leave after dropping him off for a three-day stay at karate camp. To be a parent and live through what they're doing at the border?

It's unthinkable.

But American fathers are doing it every day, and we don't give it much thought because they're not our children.

And the people who have decided that is the appropriate policy for our country are fathers as well. They are fathers in a country whose creed was once "give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore; send these, the homeless, the tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door."

I can imagine a father writing that, although the poet who wrote it was neither a father nor a parent. All the more ironic that Emma Lazarus could so clearly define a promise that we fathers, who seem to have lost all empathy, can no longer claim to keep.

Now, because their parents violated old and unreformed immigration laws (an area of policy in which the United States has a decidedly tarnished reputation) we punish the children.

If that inhumanity is truly the policy of this nation, the fathers who run it have failed.

I see the selfishness of the fathers who worship money and accumulate more of it than they could reasonably spend in a lifetime. And to preserve it, these fathers act to enforce a wage gap that keeps the children of other families living on the edge -- one major illness away from financial ruin.

The richest country in the world has the second highest child poverty rate. How can you call yourself a father and a leader of this country and allow this statistic to stand; to say without irony that such a country is in the midst of being made great again?

Keeping children safe, fed and under roof is job one for a father, a job at which the nation's fathers have undeniably failed. 

I look at the melting ice caps, the seas rising in Miami, an increasing frequency of severe storms; all the result of the climate change widely accepted throughout the scientific world as fact.

And I see the fathers who lead this nation living in denial of the truth, ignoring what is literally a world-wide threat that much of the rest of the world recognizes and is taking action, however timidly, to address.

Because, for the fathers who run this country, money is more important than providing breathable air, clean water and a livable climate to the next generation of our children. 

In April, French President Michel Macron spoke to Congress like a father is supposed to speak to a child, trying to make them aware of a reality they cannot avoid as adults.

Like the father who tells his children, "life is not fair," Macron told a recalcitrant Congress of failing fathers the truth with which they must contend if they ever grow up -- "there is no Planet B."

That the people who embrace the denial of this looming global disaster represent the nation that has done the most to bring it about is truly to shower shame on a nation that is supposed to be "the shining city on a hill."

My son, now 19 and a member of his college debate team, has initiated this conversation with me several times with increasing effectiveness, particularly when anyone mistakenly refers to him as a "millennial," that supposedly pampered generation of "everyone's-a-winner" fame.

He points out, with painful precision, that in fact it is my generation of fathers who have cocked things up so badly in this world:

• Our (love for/fear of) guns is so great that we cannot even talk about controlling them to protect our children from being shot in school without being shouted down, so our solution is to help them get used to it; 
• We have allowed hate to once again carve a foot-hold in discussions of public policy which now carry increasingly disturbing echoes of a fascist state, much like the ones our fathers once defeated in war;
• It is the policy of the fathers who lead this nation to intentionally inflict pain on helpless children who come to a land once defined by hope and which for them will now and forever be defined by cruelty and pain; 
• We allow more children to starve and be sick than any other developed nation on Earth, all so we can remain in a state of perpetual war with an idea which few of us could ever define; 
• Hell, we cannot even act to preserve the planet our children will inherit.

By nearly any measure you chose, the leaders of this nation have failed as fathers and as leaders and I am ashamed for all of us.

You Can't Have a Father's Day Without Mothers

 

My mother-in-law Marian (Mimi) Maxfield and her sister Virginia (Ginger) Bauman in the place they love best, their kitchen.

So I know I said I was taking Father's Day off, but sometimes a good post just won't wait.



Some of the feast after some of the menu had already been removed.

It is an understatement that my mother-in-law Mimi Maxfield and her sister Ginger, with whom she lives, love to cook for large numbers of people.

They have huge Thanksgiving feasts, double digits for Easter, Christmas meals that go on for days, they host many a birthday celebration and, it
 seems, for Father's Day as well.

Their father is long gone, of course, but that hasn't stopped them.

The baked goods table was hit hard.

Never women to believe that anyone should leave their house hungry, or without a bags of left-overs, they tend to over-cook to forestall any shortfall.


Chicken salad, shrimp, salmon, cream cheese...

But when a few of the expected guests cancelled for their Father's Day brunch, what was left was a feast to tickle the fancy of any fatherly glutton.

I will probably miss something, but to the best of my ability, this is the menu for a total of 11 guests:

• Two quiches: one broccoli/cheddar/bacon and one Swiss/vidalia onion;
• Three breakfast casseroles: Egg/bacon/cheese, potato/hashbrown/eggs/onion, egg. mushroom/sausage/cheese;
• Baked ziti;
• Smoked salmon, capers, cream cheese and bagels;
• Sausage gravy and biscuits;
• Fruit salad;
• Banana bread;
• Coffee cake;
• French toast
• Poppy seed and blueberry muffins;
• Bacon (of course);
• Chicken salad with grapes and almonds;
• Shrimp cocktail;
• Three pies: apple, strawberry rhubarb and Florida orange chiffon
• Apple and orange juice and coffee.

Total number of father's present?

Three.

To quote The Wiggles: "Fruit salad, yummy, yummy."

Those fathers -- myself, my brother-in-law Tommy and Ginger's son Jeff -- graciously allowed the others to taste the feast prepared in our honor if for no other reason than because getting your stomach pumped is no way to spend Father's Day.
And it occurred to me that left to our own devices, most dads would just let Father's Day slip quietly by, with maybe a nice treat at the end of the day or taking time to indulge in a hobby, or maybe take the family for a nice drive.

But sometimes, some mothers are just not willing to let that happen.

After all, without mothers, we couldn't be fathers.

Now I know part of this belly-swelling tribute has to do with the need these two mothers have to feed their young, both by blood and by marriage.


Florida orange pie.

They are accomplished cooks and bakers. The fruits of their labors are in demand at holiday time and at craft shows.

They have even managed to convince my 14-year-old to clean their windows in exchange for a pie. (There are times when I suspect my son would thrive in a pie-based economy...)

But no matter that some of their own needs are being satisfied by doing unto others, let me tell you that being one of the others has its benefits too.

It was, needless to say, a very fulsome Father's Day.

Happy Father's Day

The two people who mean Father's Day to me, my dad, my son. Can you tell which is which...

Hey, it's Father's Day.

I'm a father.

I'm taking the day off.

So sue me.

Hope all you dads out there have a good one.

All the rest of you, do right by dad today.

On Fathers

I do so like this photo of my dad.

As many of you may have guessed, I wrote most of this past week's Digital Notebook posts ahead of time, so they would publish while I am on vacation.

This one, however, I did not.

It didn't feel right to write about Father's Day too far ahead of time and, at the time I was writing the other posts, I was not sure I would write about it all. Seems sort of overly obvious.

But as Father's Day approaches, here I am sitting in my father's house on the end of Long Island doing just that.

However, something is very different from our other visits.

My father is not here.

While he and Lorraine, his effusive wife of many years, are on a river cruise in Germany and Austria, he offered his house near the beach to my family for our use, and we eagerly accepted the offer.

But as I sit here in his office where he writes, typing on the computer that he uses, looking around at the things he has hung on his home office wall, the things that inspire him and that he considers important, it seems strange not to have him here.

You might not guess it if you've met me and seen my stature (or lack thereof), but my father is a tall man and so he moves with that careful deliberation particular to people who live their lives further from the ground than the rest of us.

They have farther to fall I suppose.

So it seems odd to be in this house where I always see him and not to hear his slow pace on the creaking stairs, or to see him crossing his overlong legs in his favorite arm chair, glasses down his nose, while he works out the day's New York Times Crossword Puzzle, ("in pen," he will be sure to point out with a look that requires you to recognize the significance of the confidence he has in his answers).

He is a smart guy, my dad. He got that way mostly by reading books. Thousands of them.

And if you have ever read his blog, you know that one of the miracles of modern science is that his house does  not sink three feet into the ground from the weight of all the books it holds.

Perhaps its no surprise then, that he writes books too.

His most recent, "The Man Who Ate His Boots," was well received and well-written but it does not seem destined to make him rich.

The story of the hardships to be found in the search for the Northwest Passage, which it chronicles, is gripping stuff and a testament to man's determination -- and his arrogance -- but it's a tough sell to an American mass audience with a terminally short attention span and a (hopefully) temporary fascination with zombies.

When I told my mother that I intended to write for newspapers, she sighed. "Not another writer," the sigh seemed to say. (She wanted me to be a park ranger.)

But in some ways, it seemed inevitable, that I would follow in my father's footsteps, but in my own way. So often, that's what sons do, whether they intend to or not.

Given the uncertain future of newspapers, I fear for my own son, who informed me recently that he and a few friends at school intend to revive Pottstown Middle School's newspaper, The Echo.

"No, no, no" I told him. You should instead focus on the skills that won you and your partner First Place in that statewide investment contest. "That's where the money is. There's no money in newspapers," I told him.

Just as my father told me.

A free-lance journalist as well as an author and editor, my dad has paid his bills between books writing for magazines like Esquire, American Heritage, National Geographic Adventure, Connoisseur, and The Atlantic.

But no one gets rich as a free-lance writer either.

How clever I thought I was, picking newspaper journalism.

"At least this way, I still get a check every week," I told him when I got my first newspaper job at a now-defunct weekly in Westchester County, NY.

And of course that was before the company that owns The Mercury went bankrupt for a time.

We're back in the game, and seem to be forging ahead, trying out new models of journalism, which is exciting to be sure. But the shadow of financial failure remains in the backs of our minds, particularly as we watch lay-offs at the once-mighty Philadelphia Inquirer and, just this week, the Times-Picayune in New Orleans.

But I like this job and one of the things I like most about it is you get to do something different every day, at least if you try to.

And so that's how it is that I got the chance last week to interview Allen and Delbert Ferster for a Father's Day feature that is scheduled to be published in today's Mercury. (Barring a major fire or five-car crash, I assume it's in there today.)

Both Fersters are teachers, one at the start of his career at Rupert Elementary, the other just retired from Owen J. Roberts. Both had won similar awards for their teaching efforts.

I was struck during the interviews by one of the comments made by Delbert Ferster, the dad, who said he had never told his son to become a teacher. He said he would have been just as happy with any profession his son Allen chose, provided he loved it and found to be fulfilling.

"But I would be lying if I didn't say that I'm thrilled" that his son is a teacher, Delbert added honestly.

And I suspect that is what my father would say if anyone were to interview him on the subject.

We leave a lot unspoken he and I, as fathers and sons tend to do, although he has been sure to tell me he is proud of me, just as I make sure to tell my son the same.

And just as Allen Ferster made his choice, as much because he was surrounded by teachers as because he saw the fulfillment it brought his father, I suppose I stood little chance of becoming a doctor.

But like Delbert Ferster, and my own father, my wife and I have been careful not to tell my son what he should be when he grows up. Our job is to enable their dreams as much as possible, not to define them. (Given the state of newspapers these days, however, and Dylan's interest in The Echo, I am starting to reconsider that decision.)

After all, there's no money in it.

But it is fun, and it can make a difference -- kind of like teaching I suppose.

Still, it wouldn't hurt the family finances to have an investment banker or two in the gene pool.

* * *

Our gene pool is an interesting one.

One of the things I'm staring at hanging on the wall in my father's office is a photograph of he and I, his late brother Charles, and a cousin of theirs, Jim Brandt, taken at a family reunion more than 10 years ago in upstate New York.

My father and his brother took very different paths as men and as fathers and only later in life began to appreciate each other's choices.

For example, my dad pursued a career in writing, moved to a different state and fathered two very independent children.

My uncle went to law school, stayed in the town in which he was born, became the town attorney and raised six children whose daily interplay is a wonder to behold.

It's taken me a while -- 47 years to be exact -- to get to know my father.

He can be very quiet and does not say things unless he feels they need saying, or to make a pun. In that we are painfully alike.

But I found out there were things I still didn't know when he sent me an advance of his memoirs, as yet un-published.

The most surprising discovery, to me at least, was that he loved growing up summers on Long Beach Island, surrounded by cousins and uncles. (I knew he loved LBI and sailing there, but I didn't know about the big family part.)

His grandfather, for whom his father worked and whose daughter his father married, hosted much of the family in his modest summer home in Ship Bottom.

They ate, laughed and played together in a time before television.

This seemed a far cry from the man who worked at home during my childhood and whose requirements for solitude and quiet contemplation led to the establishment of a second home office up in the attic (yes, a SECOND home office), far from the hue and cry of my neighbors and I playing in the yard, and which further discouraged interruption for any reason, even after I got my pant leg stuck in my bicycle chain.

(Damned bell-bottom jeans.)

But suddenly, my uncle's fathering of a large brood made more sense. He was following in the footsteps of his grandfather, whom he venerated.

And when my uncle died of cancer several years ago, I only now began to understand the eager manner in which my father stepped into the breech as best he could with my cousins.

During a festive 75th birthday party my cousins hosted for my dad this fall, I saw him surrounded by his brother's offspring, and his own, and thought about how this must have a certain nostalgia for him, fueled by a past that, until recently, I had not known he lived, and missed. 

All part of the mystery of fatherhood I suppose.

Certainly, every family is different but mothers, it seems to me, are generally more immediate in a child's life. We grow inside them and form a biological bond with them that is intimate and strong and stretches beyond simple circumstances.

Fathers, however, can be different. Some are aloof, some close, some fun some serious, some quiet some boisterous. The role they have to adopt, or create, is not as clearly defined as that of mothers.

Less trapped by society's expectations, they are also less guided, left to find their way, or fail to, as best they can.

Uncertainty and freedom go hand-in-hand it seems.

When my wife was pregnant, I worried about whether I would be a good father.

I worried about it this morning.

I worry about it as I send my son, eager to use the computer, away again so I can finish writing this.

But these are questions, the answers to which, depend on time, and as much on who is providing the answer as who asked the question, I suppose.

And so the answer is as uncertain, it seems, as your latest choice, your latest decision and the principles you bring to the table to guide you in those decisions.

Chances are, your father helped you form those principles.

Happy Father's Day everybody.