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http://www.cumberlink.com/articles/2006/06/15/editorial/rich_lewis/lewis01.txtDad’s not a complete idiot — really
By Rich Lewis, June 15, 2006
Many years ago, my friend Bill and I were hanging out and chatting about this and that.
At one point, he mentioned that his son, who had recently graduated from college and gotten married, was buying a house and that the two of them had been talking about it.
Then Bill said something that I have never forgotten.
"I think my son finally realizes that I’m not a complete idiot."
I don’t know exactly what Bill’s son had said to him, but that one statement — "I think my son finally realizes that I’m not a complete idiot" — stuck in my head and I thought of it often over the years. The tone of Bill’s voice and the look on his face had expressed an emotion that I can only describe as joyful satisfaction. The moment came and went in a flash and I never fully understood why it made such a deep impression on me.
Until this week.
I was hanging out on the front porch talking to my son, Steve. He’s now considering going to the University of Pittsburgh in the fall to get his bachelor’s degree, and we were talking about what classes he might take. The normal college load is four courses each semester, but students sometimes take five and Steve said he might do that.
Then he turned to me: "I’ve been thinking that something you told me is really true," he said. "The task at hand will always fill up the time available to do it, so I figure that five courses wouldn’t take any more time than four."
Well, if you had taken my picture at that moment, what you would have seen on my face was joyful satisfaction. I wanted to run over to Bill’s house and announce, "I think my son finally realizes I’m not a complete idiot!"
Sure, my "advice" to Steve was just a rewording of Parkinson’s Law: "Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion." But it was a truth that I had learned from my own experience.
It was nice he remembered it. It was nice he was making use of it.
But what was amazing and thrilling was that he was explicity giving me credit for a piece of good advice. The son was actually acknowledging that the old man had taught him a lesson worth learning.
Such a tiny detail, but such a huge moment for me.
It’s just a coincidence that Sunday is Father’s Day — but the timing made me think about this even more.
Some fathers have the magic touch and I admire them. From cradle to career, the kids just move along in loving harmony with dad.
But for most of us, fatherhood is often a bit more frustrating.
First, there are a thousand ways to be a good father, and a strong argument can be made for all of them. The problem is they contradict each other — be firm, be flexible; be a friend, be an authority figure; do as I say, do as I do; protect them from the world, push them into the world. You try to pick a way that suits your temperament and values, but inconsistency and agonized second-guessing come with the territory because kids are moving targets, moving faster as they get older, and you’re always trying to adjust your aim.
And kids are willful, independent creatures who will be who they will be despite your mightiest efforts to mold them into ideal shapes. Even the Old Testament God presumably thought he had fashioned exactly the person he wanted when he took a lump of clay and made Adam. Look how that turned out.
Every father carries a lifetime of experience in his head — the hard-won wisdom about family, community, work, play, good, evil and all the other things that matter. Sometimes you wish you could just open your brain and let all that stuff pour out on the table for your kids to see and understand.
But you can’t. It just sort of leaks out in disconnected pronouncements and mutterings that never quite express your meaning or make sense to your kids. They listen blankly or roll their eyes, clearly sending the painful message: You’re a complete idiot.
So you plug away, never quite sure where it’s all heading. The temptation to give up is sometimes pretty strong, but you don’t.
Then one day, out of the blue, you get an amazing signal, as though from some distant planet you weren’t even sure existed. Your kid casually suggests that you have made a difference — that the eyes and ears behind that scowling, skeptical face have actually been open all this time.
The one person from whom you most wanted to hear it has affirmed that you are, indeed, not a complete idiot.
So all you sons and daughters, here’s a piece of old-fashioned advice from one dad — if you’re looking for a Father’s Day gift that he’ll really like, you couldn’t possibly do better than this.
Rich Lewis' e-mail address is rlcolumn@comcast.net
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