The difference Dad's make

by Brian Schroeder

Superintendent of Public Instruction

“We’ll go fishing on Saturday, boy, I promise!”All week long, it’s what the kid lived for. To spend a whole day with dad in a boat on the river would be the highlight of his summer. In fact, the young lad was so excited that on the Friday night before the big day, he took his fishing pole and tackle box to bed with him.

Early the next morning the boy was up before his dad, getting dressed, assembling his gear, re-examining his lures for the umpteenth time.

Then he heard the phone ring. The familiar voice on the other end said, “Be in your office in an hour, John.  There will be a very important client waiting to meet you.”The boy’s world came crashing down around him as his father took off for work without saying a word. He didn’t return until late that evening.

True story.

If you know this little boy or his dad, you understand why it never fails to hit a nerve. If you are this little boy – or his dad – the story no doubt is an ominous reminder of how quickly things can change between a father and a son.

My own experience goes much deeper. I was three years old when my mother and father divorced. Though custody went to my mom, my brother and I looked forward every weekend to seeing our dad –he was important to us. In time, though, it became apparent that feelings were less than mutual. He did the visitation thing for a while but then fizzled out. We didn’t see him again for over 35 years – no letters, no phone calls, no visits.

A little late, but all the major studies are finally beginning to dovetail: at the very core of the bulk of our societal ills are seven decades of fathers gone AWOL – those dead-beat dads who leave their families high and dry, or the detached, distant type who are in the home but not of it.

Not only do ideas have consequences, but choices do as well, and when a man chooses to leave his children, the results are inescapable.

I am a survivor of those results, so it is hard for me to accept the idea that divorce doesn’t hurt kids. It is equally hard to believe that men have only a marginal role at best or that women can effectively wear the hats of both mom and dad in the home.

Child psychologist Dr. Urie Bronfenbrenner was once asked, “What is the key ingredient in the successful development of a child?” He replied, “Someone … has to be crazy about the kid.”Most kids would make it if there was someone who found them more interesting than TV or work or money or material possessions.

For many, that someone was a mother or grandparent, a coach or teacher. For the lucky few, though, it was dad. Understandably, such a relationship evokes not only envy in some of us who were less blessed, but determination that it will be different for our own kids.

Some of you have great stories and incredible childhood memories of your father. Others have few stories, and still others are haunted by memories too painful to speak of. Whatever be the case, our own experiences can serve us notice that fathers are irreplaceably important to their children’s lives.

As those little personalities clamor for our attention, may we slow down enough to notice how much we mean to them – how profoundly important our approval or words of praise are to them – and may our paternal commitment be renewed.

Most of what we men consider to be important is anything but. If our children someday leave our homes, however, convinced that dad was crazy about them, they will surely have been given a profound and enduring sense of identity.

If our sons pass the same on to their posterity, they will have crowned us with a rare and unimpeachable legacy.