“I don’t get no respect.” Comedian Rodney Dangerfield made that catchphrase the heart of his act.
The Diminished Dad
In the last 50 years, we’ve gone from “The Waltons” to “The Simpsons,” from hardworking and loving father and husband John Walton to Homer Simpson, who is often more a child than his children. Advertisers give us the doofus dad who couldn’t boil an egg. Some female celebrities cheer for single motherhood. For many women, the welfare state, a sort of institutional sugar daddy, has replaced the father.
Of course, some dads don’t deserve respect. They abandon their families, or refuse to make child payments, or don’t even bother to know their children at all.
Like life, literature can portray fathers in a bad light. Shakespeare’s King Lear forces his daughters to compete for his attention and his kingdom, Johnny Nolan of “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” loves his wife and children but is a drunkard who can’t support them, and Pat Conroy’s “The Great Santini” gives us a Marine Corps pilot who verbally and physically abuses his wife and children, particularly when he’s been drinking.
Dads for the Youngsters
‘Horton Hatches an Egg’Fooled into sitting on a bird’s egg while the mother, Mayzie, heads for the beach, Horton the Elephant goes through different trials to keep the egg safe and warm. “I meant what I said,” declares the faithful Horton, “and I said what I meant. An elephant’s faithful one hundred percent!” The egg hatches, revealing a sort of elephant bird, and the stouthearted Horton has kept his word.
With a little tinkering, the refrain by Dr. Seuss’s Horton might serve as a motto to all good fathers: “I meant what I said, and I said what I meant. A father is faithful one hundred percent!”
In Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Little House” series, Charles Ingalls, known to readers as Pa, gives himself fully to his family, friends, and faith. He finds delight and pleasure in music—his fiddle playing is the family’s chief source of entertainment—works hard, and faces up to the challenges of life on the prairie. His optimism anchors his family in the toughest of times.
Charles Halloway, a character in Ray Bradbury’s ‘Something Wicked This Way Comes,” feels himself ancient at 54 years old, yet he steps up to the plate to protect his young son Will and his son’s friend Jim from Mr. Dark and the evil carnival he commands. Halloway epitomizes Dad as defender and protector.
Classical Fathers
The ‘Aeneid’
“Do you suppose, my father, that I could tear myself away and leave you?” Aeneas asks Anchises when trying to convince him to escape the Greeks. That filial devotion reveals not only a Roman reverence for the paterfamilias, but also a son who loves his father.
Charles Dickens’s classic tale portrays Bob Cratchit, the clerk of the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge, as a man who endures poverty and harsh working conditions, but who always brings home to his wife and children a cheerful disposition. In Scrooge’s visitation to the Cratchit household with the Ghost of Christmas Future, we learn that the lame Tiny Tim has died. Even with that disaster, Cratchit encourages his other children to love each other and to be as virtuous as Tiny Tim.
In Victor Hugo’s classic novel, Jean Valjean, an ex-criminal who turns his life around, promises a dying woman that he will find her daughter, Cosette, and bring her to her bedside. Unable to keep that promise, Jean Valjean educates Cosette and loves her as if she were his daughter.
Fatherly Advice
‘Gone With the Wind’In this novel of the South during the Civil War and afterward, Irish immigrant and Georgia plantation owner Gerald O’Hara may display some erratic behavior, particularly after his wife dies, and he has a taste for whiskey, but his love for his daughters is imperishable. In O’Hara, writer Margaret Mitchell gives us a father who despite many personal trials remains steadfast in his affections.
By telling Scarlett, “The land is the only thing in the world worth working for, worth fighting for, worth dying for, because it’s the only thing that lasts,” O’Hara plants an idea in his daughter’s head that will carry her through adversity when so many around her have given way to despair.
David Malter, the father of Reuven, is an Orthodox Jew, a writer, scholar, and humanitarian. Reb Saunders, a highly revered Hasidic Jew, is father to Danny, a brilliant young man who wants to study psychoanalysis rather than follow in his father’s footsteps as a religious leader. In this novel, Chaim Potok examines fatherhood through the eyes of two men who love their sons but take utterly different paths in raising them. This excellent book might be shared and discussed by fathers and their teenage sons—and daughters—for its deep insights into fatherhood, conflict, and love.
Endnote
In “The Gift,” poet Li-Young Lee recollects his father pulling a metal shard from his hand when he was a boy. To distract his son from the pain, his father tells him a story, and Lee writes:I can’t remember the tale, but hear his voice still, a well of dark water, a prayer. And I recall his hands, two measures of tenderness he laid against my face, the flames of discipline he raised above my head.
A prayer, tenderness, the flames of discipline—these are just a few of the marks of the good father.To all of you fathers trying your best to turn children into loving, thinking, and responsible adults, the above authors and I salute you.
Happy Father’s Day!
