Fathers Day!

[Deleted]

Thank you DS. I like you ,learned to forgive and it has been liberating. There are some sick people in the world and our parents are/were not exempt from this nor are we.
And I feel so much better knowing I, we,have a new father figure . Good clean fun for the whole wretched family!

[distantshores]

Thanks casi... I like you too. So many times we don't know all the circumstances before we pass judgement. Often if we make an effort to understand, we see things in a whole new light! I'm trying to get a 4 generation photo of my Father, myself, my son, and my three grandsons before my Father, or any of the rest of us would pass on. It will bring a great peace to my heart and something to be proud of for many years to come. When they engrave "Rest in Peace" on my tombstone, I want it to be for real!

Go make your new family a happy family! Go get em casi!

[hwinpp]

Agree completely with Rikita at #21.

When I was still living at home Father's Day was a nice holiday, doing nothing. My father wasn't around because he worked overseas. Later on I did the beer cart/get drunk thing a couple of times but that stopped once I'd moved to Hanover.
Mother's Day was nothing special, I don't even think it's a holiday. If my mother knew or remembered in advance, she'd always tell us not to waste money on anything for her.

[Deleted]

Great moments in pop culture fatherhood

[tillystar]

I like you ,learned to forgive and it has been liberating.

I did this too about 12 years ago, then recently I learnt of more lives that he had destroyed (he is also a drunk...surprise surprise) and the last few weeks I find that forgiveness has given way to intense anger. I suppose I will wallow in it for a while and then get back to forgiving and pitying the old bastard.

ooo there I go dragging us down again

[happytraveller]

Wow, I can consider myself very lucky. I have a great, gentle, intelligent and very caring dad. I don't know where I would be without him and his never ending support.

[BigIain]

exactly what HappyT said. I am immensely lucky too

[bjd]

We don't celebrate Mother's Day or Father's Day. When the children were in nursery school and made noodle necklaces or plant cuttings, it was rather nice, but I really don't think it's important.

[Deleted]

I was very lucky to have a very good stepfather, but I was mostly grown before he arrived on the scene.

[bixaorellana]

Tilly, you shouldn't have to justify yourself for how you feel.

It's all very nice to prattle to others about how they're "supposed" to feel, or what would liberate them psychologically. Uh, they know how they're supposed to feel, and if they don't, Hallmark Cards and other commercial advertising will make damned sure they do.

It would be nice if our "unresolved conflicts" could be cured in the twinkle of an after-school special, but it just ain't so.

[lola]

Mine was a great father in many ways, funny, liked to discuss things and to sing with us. Loved music, wrote a play. Unfortunately, a philosophy major. I'm glad we were all in high school before he became a fugitive from US justice.

My husband resembles Ward Cleaver in comparison. He'll be off at a dragonfly symposium, or possibly birding all day on Sunday, so I won't have to make too much of a fuss.

[lagatta]

Family! Kerouac et al, my father's addiction was tobacco, and he had two heart attacks, phlebitis and other maladies before dying of lung cancer when I was 15. Despite that, and despite woeful personality changes due to the heart problems (which probably included minor strokes), I had a much better relationship with my dad than with my mum, who is still technically alive but failing. Mum always hyper-critical of me, no praise, even when I got perfect marks at university. Sad. Seems her own father was violent and abusive. He had suffered discrimination (from the Antilles and not quite white) but no reason to take it out on wife and kids. Such long, sad stories.

I want to write about happier things though. I see so many young dads - who could be my sons if I had had children - involved in the daily lives of their children to a much greater degree than even our generation, to say nothing of my parents' one. It is really a pleasure to see this social shift, not just from the sake of gender equity but also the real joy these young men take in being dads and enjoying the fleeting years of their sons' and daughters' childhoods.

So happy day to all.

Tomorrow is also National Aboriginal Day in Canada. Connections will be drawn in broken communities, of the importance of positive involvement of fathers in their children's lives.

[spindrift]

My father was 64 when I was born; he died when I was 10 so I don't remember much about him except that he wasn't easy to live with. But he loved me and made sure I was provided for and able to go to an excellent school. He did his best for me.

I had 3 step-fathers after that. They died one after the other very quickly. The second one came along after I had left home.....they weren't great to my dear mother and the last one was an alcoholic.

[lagatta]

My parents were not young either; my mum was 42 and my dad at least 10 years older. The "postwar baby boom" mean many people from barely adult to middle-aged starting families at once. I think this created a great gap, as well as all the other problems one always finds in families.

That said, happy day today to all dads out there.

[Deleted]

My mother was 28 when I was born, and I always felt that she was really old compared to the "other mothers." Now, age 28 has become the average age for a first pregnancy in France.

[Deleted]

Has anybody ever embarrassed their father?

[BigIain]

I think the night that my father had to come and collect me from the Police Station cells when I was around 18 would have embarrassed him somewhat!!

[Deleted]

Were you a bad boy Iain? Please feel free to tell me it's none of my business.