dbp said...
It pains me to say it, but most of my memories of my dad (going back roughly to when I was 10 or 12),are fairly unpleasant.
It isn't just me either; my siblings and their spouses mostly try and avoid him too. The biggest problem is that my mom is the most pleasant and easy to get along-with person on the planet, but they are kind of a package deal--can't see one without the other.
My wife and I have three daughters and they are the best part of our lives. I try to be reminded that the mere fact of being their father is not enough to keep their affection forever. If I am a big enough jerk for long enough, they will write me off and well they should. This is why I try and be the best father I can for them--it is certainly the most important job I will ever have
Okay, I don't want to end on such a sour note: My dad is no fun to be around, but he was a great dad to brag about when one-upping friends:He was a highly decorated fighter pilot who flew 3 tours in Viet Nam in RF-4C's, drove a racy red Austin Healy and had a rifle-like tennis serve well into his 40's. As a kid, I was very proud to have such a cool dad.
If you want to see a father and husband who loves his family and is a credit to the name of Dad you should check out dbp’s blog.
Just one problem. He let’s those poor kids eat Indian food. For crying out loud get those kids some sausage hero’s and meat ball parm man.
Leave the curry, take the cannoli.
5 comments:
I agree about the curry.
My own dad worked his ass off raising 13 kids. We were no end of grief to him, what with half of that group coming of age in the late 60s-early 70s.
One of my favorite memories: He would come home from his job as an industrial engineer (whatever the hell that was) and he would show us a trick. He'd take a colored piece of paper, write down someone's name on it, tear it into shreds and swallow it and act like it was working its way down to his fat old stomach. Very dramatic.
He'd open his shirt and pull out the same balled-up colored paper from his belly-button, once again all in one piece, name on it and all!
Woo hoooo! How'd you do that?!?, we'd ask.
Years later I realized he must have sat in his office chair, putting a wad of paper in his belly button, just to do that trick when he got home.
That's love.
The kids get their fair-share of Italian food, you can be sure of that! I learned a lot on my own, but picked-up quite a bit from my (off the boat) grandma.
They also love some pretty-odd Indian dishes too. My in-laws live pretty close by, so the kids are often over there trying stuff you can't even find in an Indian restaurant.
You see, most Indian restaurants are Northern Indian, but my in-laws are from the South, which has really different kinds of things. Much more seafood and coconut. My mother-in-law knows the popular Northern dishes too, so at dinner one can say truthfully, "so many items"!
Well then they have the best of both worlds.
They should enjoy the best of both of their heritages.
The one thing I am sure of is that they will be proud of their dad.
That Dad was a total hard ass but I believe he loved his family in the only way he knew possible.
If a man did not have an outwardly loving Dad he can experience,with his own children, the relationship from the side of the Dad he wished he had.
Without trying to draw comparisons, my parents weren't (and aren't) perfect. We definitely had different priorities at comparable times of our lives. (That is to say, I'm way more about family than they were when I was a kid.)
And I confess, I've been mad at them, and not always kind, particularly in my teens and 20s.
At some point, though, I started looking at their parents. Kids of nuclear families, with some awful parents, and no clue what they were doing with kids--and there was no support when they started having them.
Not only did they not have families to teach them stuff, they didn't even have the third party kind of support available today. Not even much in the way of books. (Dr. Spock?)
Everyone did it, right? How hard could it be?
Poor saps.
I've grown to be eternally grateful--and actually impressed-- they did as well as they did.
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