Notes on Father’s Day To A New Dad

 

[one of two Father's Day pieces written 2013]

 

Notes on Father’s Day To A New Dad

By Charles E. Kraus

              There are several ways to state the good news – my daughter had a baby, my wife and I are finally grandparents, my other daughter is finally an aunt, her partner is an aunt, my son-in-law became a father just in time to receive his first round of Father’s Day cards.

And his first round of fathering advice.

I’ll save the childrearing suggestions for another day.  The gist of this column is to offer a few thoughts about the benefits of turning parent, specifically, being a recipient of Father’s Day salutations.

I never sent my father a Father’s Day card.  Only my mother did that, and I was under the impression he found the sentiment excessive.   His generation of dads considered any expression of sentiment excessive.  When I verbalized my best wishes, he nodded and went on with life.  I’m betting he thought formal Father’s Day endorsements, the specific setting aside of time and focus for what he rationalized as just another part of life, was yet another commercial intrusion into one’s personal affairs.

My take on Father’s Day initially mirrored dad’s skeptical view –  Hallmark expanding its market.  Such proclamations were not from the heart, they were from the store.  You bought a few nice generic words and sent them, as society and custom required, to your father. 

But then, I added a new entry to my resume.  I was no longer just a son.  I became … a father.  Moving up the ladder this way can change your perspective.   Everything I’d ever thought about for-profit holidays remained a part of my Father’s Day assumptions.  But I supplemented the research and revised my conclusions.

I realized that when my kids were little, they didn’t know anything about greeting card sales or Amazon gift certificates.  They knew about terrific art projects, about hands-on gift making that involved a lot of marking pens, glitter and glue.  About using their energies to craft more than what was in the gift wrapping, to create happiness.  They used Father’s Day as an opportunity to share love.

Suddenly, receiving Father’s Day acknowledgments felt great.  And the converse was also true – just the thought about not receiving them, foretold despair.  Would the day come when the cards, or the phone calls, would cease?  When that last minute, end of the day, just under the wire, email or text would not arrive, and a rush of dismay would wrench my stoic resolve?

Stand-by Thomas.  Little Alice Zarin is going to smile at you, and you will be under her spell.   I see you looking into her eyes, and I see her looking right back.  The two of you are beginning a dialogue.   It will be comprised of happy moments.  Sad ones.  Of joy, anger, encouragement, concern, appreciation, and a feeling so deep that calling it love is barely doing it justice.  This conversation is communicated with the eyes, with the heart, in silence, with gesture, with mysterious unexplainable perceptions, with the spoken word, and with written words such as “Happy Father’s Day..”

Welcome to the club.