Father's Day and Amazing Grace

I'm going to try to write something here about Father's Day.

I could write that I believe Father's Day, like other holidays, are merely fantasies created by card makers to sell more cards. And I would be right.

What I also believe is that the mental health profession is probably making a killing during days such as Father's Day. Who among us doesn't yearn for the bucolic image of father and son or father and daughter times spent together playing chess, riding bicycles, doing homework? Who among us doesn't pine for the acceptance of a parent, namely that of a father? Who among us isn't caught up between the need for a parent and the parent's rejection, even if that rejection is merely the silence of a parent that has been largely absent? I imagine that far too many of us are spending time at least trying to come to terms with the parent -- or lack of one -- in our lives on days such as "Father's Day".

But at 42, the time has long passed that I can really cry "foul" on the lack of parenting from my father. Truly, I watch the credit card commerical of the guy watching his daughter grow up in front of him and tears do well and emotions do come. And I sneer at them, "yeah, if I'd ONLY had a dad with a large credit line, then surely all my problems would be gone." Uh huh...that'd do it. What kind of marketing slime creates such images for us to view? As if parenting is just about footing the bill and signing on the bottom line?

The reality is that parenting is a job for those that have much more at their disposal than large credit lines. If parenting were ONLY about filling the perpetual extended hand! Parenting is an investment of every emotional capability we have -- emotional, spiritual, physcial. There is no job or challenge that can compare to that of raising emotionally healthy beings in a world that values one's cash value more than they do one's ability to live at peace with oneself and with others.

Though my father has been absent most of my life, he is the ghost that haunts me in my parenting. I simply want to do it better than he did. I want to be "there" in more ways than flesh...I want to be there for my kids in ways that matter.

And here is where they difference between me and my father must end. I am far less able to be a "present parent" and do that well than I would have thought when I was a kid, sizing up my parents and declaring them less than what I wanted. For if I am honest with myself (and honesty is a key element of being a healthy parent) I have to admit...it is tough stuff to keep one's head in the parenting game amidst the cry of mortgage payments, school activities, work comittments, life disappointments.

Recently, my son picked up his first check from his summer job. While I knew in my adult head (and heart) that his minimum wage paying job was going to be long, arduous and thankless, he did not yet see it that way. This was his independence day! This was the day he become a wage earner! He was excited to get his first check and we went to the place together, me holding my breath the entire way. His jubilance was held in check as he opened the envelope and realized what so many of us do at payday-- there is often far less in that weekly envelope than we had hoped. Far less cash, far less opportunity, far less acclaim and sometimes far less satisfaction.

This, coupled with the recent event of his first speeding ticket provided him a great life opportunity. The opportunity for him to be accountable for the results of his actions and quite literally, to "pay up". The reality was, after the ticket, filling up his gas tank and keeping up with the demands of teenage life, he was already out of cash.

My heart broke for him. Part of me wanted to take him and say, "Hey, no problem, I'll cover this for you." And I could've. Easily. Would have taken it away from him in a heart beat. That would've eased my pain but could have easily doubled his.

Being a present parent requires that we feel that pain and realize that the pain of today will be multiplied a hundred fold when the lesson is learned later. Today, it may be a few nights out with friends that he is missing so that he can make the cash he needs to pay for his day in court...in a few years, the cost to him might be much greater. This was simply an opportunity for him to learn the cost of living is one that has to be measured in a large degree on how we manage our time and how we manage our resources.

This is when it is not easy to be a parent. It's not easy when your kids KNOWS you can take away his momentary pain and you resolutely decide you will not. It isn't fun knowing that he looks at every purchase you make and says, "yeah, but will she help ME OUT?" It isn't easy, frankly, to be the one that makes the hard choices.

It would be easier to be my kid's buddy, their best friend, their "fun-time" pal. But it wouldn't be the kind of parent that I know I needed -- and still need -- and the kind of parent that my kid needs.

Nope, I'm quite sure I didn't have a perfect dad. And I'm almost as certain I won't be the perfect parent either. Perhaps the best that we can do it as we grow into parents ourselves is to have the grace to look to our own parents and say, "yeah, you were a screw up. you blew it a lot. "

The reality is, we all do. Parenting isn't about perfection. It's about growing up. Becoming mature. Facing responsibility when we'd rather duck it. Following through when we'd rather quit. Continuing on when it'd be so much easier to give up.

And all of us, in every generation, do this imperfectly. Maybe, if I can learn grace myself -- how to give it, accept it, lavish it on others, they just might be able to extend it to me as they evaluate my parenting.