Loving Fathers Day!

Frequently, on Father’s Day, I write something about my father. I realized as Father’s Day 2019 quickly approached that one of the best ways to think about Father’s Day was to take a look at the video of DJ Pryor watching the season finale of “Empire” and discussing it with his pre-verbal son. I wrote a column about it last week and never even connected it to Father’s Day!

One of the most important experiences that I had with my father was that of being taken seriously. This was true throughout my life. At a very young age he seemed to have great confidence in me and my potential. At the dinner table he and my mother would engage my sister and me in discussions that ranged from family events to US foreign policy. At each moment I felt respected and even when we disagreed, he never wrote me off as a “kid.”

That is what I felt when I watched the Pryor video. Sure, Pryor was having fun with his son, knowing full well that his son could not fully understand what he was hearing, but that did not matter. His son was trying to communicate and, more than anything else, wanted to be with his father at that moment and to be treated as a little person and not as a presence.

What tremendous lessons there are to be learned from that moment. And what love to see between a father and son at a moment that, for many, would have been just an ordinary evening while watching television. Yet it is those types of moments that are forever remembered by children and are most meaningful. I can fortunately say that I had many such moments. I hope that you, the reader, have had just as many.

Thinking of those moments and how many of us who are now fathers have tried to replicate them, is the best way to celebrate Father’s Day.

Happy Father’s Day, 2019!

3 thoughts on “Loving Fathers Day!

  1. Thanks for sharing your memories,Bill. Maybe that’s why women look for men that remind them of their fathers…because they’ll take us seriously and that’s so important for the maturation of a child, young adult; lifelong.

  2. I am very happy for you and all the others who have such great memories. It is a sign of how empty or relative privilege can be that too many of us have no such memories. My tyrannical, abusive father did, however, provide motivation to be better. I hope I succeeded.

    • Thank you for this. I am sorry for your experience and I appreciate your writing about it. I write, most Father’s Days, about what I believe to be the best elements of fathers and about what fathers can do. I saw that in the Pryor video and I feel it when I think about my own father. That said, my father had his own challenges, as do we all. But I miss him and his counsel. Again, thank you very much for your condor.

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