Remembering Father’s Days Past and the Present
Fatherhood is not a career choice for which there is any preparation – at least there wasn’t for my generation.
When I was a small boy, girls my age played with dolls. I’m sure many of them envisioned themselves as the mommies of the future. I just couldn’t wrap my psyche around a doll whose most endearing feature was simulating urination after fluid was poured into its mouth. Then, I supposed, 10 year old girls couldn’t appreciate Enos Slaughter’s historic dash from 1st base, scoring on Harry Walk- er’s line drive to left-center field in the seventh game of the 1946 World Series giving the Cards a victory over the Red Sox. Being a father really hit me when my wife moved my hand to her stomach to feel the baby kicking. Suddenly I was Gordon McRae singing the Soliloquy from “Carousel,” or more likely, I’m sure I sounded more like Jack Nicholson’s off-key version from the movie “Heartburn.”
Like many men unprepared for the fatherhood position, I stumbled through the role constantly wondering when heaven was going to open its floodgates and rain wisdom down upon me. I wanted the kind of wisdom that said this is what you do next, dummy; here’s how to handle this situation, jocko. Because when your daughter comes home with a broken heart, or the girl your son asked to the prom turns him down, you don’t always know what to say. Oh, there are plenty of words in our lexicography to use. It’s just that you feel inadequate to choose the right ones.
Those situations don’t go away as you get older and your children become parents themselves, because, as all parents know, they never stop being your children no matter how old they are
Your children can surprise you at any age, too. Here’s an example. My youngest daughter, Jenny, posted the following comment on Facebook when her son was four years old: Have you ever looked at your young child and something about the expression on his face or the way he was sitting gave you a glance into the future of how he will be as a young man … and you are reminded of how you are responsible for molding and shaping this human being… and you feel a little panicky, but excited, but unsure … and you know it will go by so fast and you want to saver the moment … then he makes a vroom, vroom noise with his truck and he is 4 years old again, and you breathe a sigh of relief.
I think Jenny had one of those “Ah-hah!” moments that parents experience while raising children. It was rife with prescience and lacking in perspective. She will acquire that perspective in the years ahead. As Jenny’s father I have the advantage of being the third person Omniscient Narrator used in novels to let the reader know everything about the characters and events in the story. Another way of saying I am getting old.
Parents can look at their grown children with a linear perspective. We can look in both directions, forward and back with an editor’s choice of viewing the entire story as it has developed to this point, or flip back and forth through the story to savor the moments.
Let me tell you of a similar experience I had with Jenny when she was the same age as her son. One evening when she was four, she was lying across my lap while we were watching TV. She often amazed me with “off the wall” comments and I wondered what was going on in her head at that moment. I don’t know where this question came from, but I asked her: “Jenny, do you consider yourself an expert in anything?” She seemed puzzled by the question.
“Is there a subject, any subject, that you think you know more about that anyone else?” I asked. “Yes,” she replied – which in itself surprised me.
“What is the subject?”
“Socks.”“Socks! What is it you know about socks that makes you an expert?” “You wash ‘em. You wear ‘em. And you smell ‘em.”
Case closed. Jenny, you were the indisputable expert in socks. Like you, Jenny, I was reminded that I was going to be responsible for molding and shaping a human being. And I breathed a sigh of relief when you turned back to the TV show and became a four year old again. You see, darling daughter, it’s the question marks, not the periods and commas that make us panicky about the future.
And it did go by so fast.
Jenny, your four year old will turn out as well as mine did. I know this because I can see where you and your brother and sister were, as well as where you are now. And that allows me to stand here as a very proud papa on Father’s Day.
Jerry Gervase can be contacted at jerrygervase@yahoo.com
