Dear Dad

Dear Dad, 

You've been gone for over a decade, but I still feel your presence. What I remember most is your reassuring look. When I was younger, if I felt uncertain, or misunderstood, I’d search for your eyes across the room. “You’re alright, I understand.” they’d say to me. Thank you for seeing what I needed.

I’ve experienced so much since I could no longer find you across the room. The list of expectations and roles that many women are navigating has multiplied. I’ve had more opportunities than you foresaw for your daughter. But there’s also been a nagging question, “Did I do it right? I was spread thin.” 

Fatherhood, to me, used to conjure images of sacrifice. Long hours toiling to make ends meet and to provide for family. Moments missed when you weren't home. Clients’ needs clamoring for attention, often before our own. In those days, it was more expected that work would be the focus.

As the landscape of women’s opportunity has shifted, men’s roles have also evolved. Society doesn’t talk about them often, but we should. If you were here, what would you see?

You’d be touched to see your granddaughter’s husband care for their new baby. He is instinctive, effortless, and natural. He’s changing diapers and coming home for lunch while navigating the fog of returning to work and active parenting. He’s within a generation of many men who are carrying multiple responsibilities.

There’s a beautiful give and take emerging as fatherhood evolves. Technology and new types of industries have provided flexibility to work from anywhere. 

Fathers reinvent themselves too! It’s no longer normal to stay in the same job with the same company your whole career.

Dads blow kisses to their kids as they drop them off at school, then run home for Zoom meetings. They are coaches, consoling cheerleaders, and strong shoulders to cry on when the score doesn't end in their child’s favor. 

In our family, “Dad,” as I affectionately call my husband Bill, is the funny man. The ringleader. The fourth child. 

Numerous times after I returned home from a work trip, I’d hear a casual comment from a kid in the backseat during carpool about the movie Dad let them watch while I was away – one that everyone knew I would never have approved of. Like clockwork, I’d hear myself say, “Oh, you guys!” Someone has to be the parent! :-)

Some things never change…and I’m not sure I’d want them to. Bill keeps us laughing. He connects with our kids with a twinkle in his eye, and keeps them coming home!

He has also been tenderly patient. I remember one fleeting conversation, during several years when my job was particularly demanding, when I acknowledged that we were two ships passing in the night. I told him it wouldn’t be forever, and that I knew we were OK, despite the strain. I thanked him for supporting, and not resenting, me. He’s often been home with the kids, and the one reinventing himself when we moved. 

The blessing is that our kids grew up with both parents caring for their daily needs. It’s been a strong trial run of give and take for the next generation.

I’ve reached that point in life, where you were, when I last saw you, Dad. Parenting is no longer a daily thing. I find myself now in regular conversations with my peers about how to be a parent to, rather than parenting, my adult children. 

How do you back off, trust, and know when to keep your mouth shut? You were so good at it, Dad! 

It saddens me that, in my insecurity, I often took your silence to mean that I was somehow not good enough for you. Now I see that you were allowing me to figure things out for myself. You didn’t need to grill me; you trusted me.

You once said to me, after your hair went white, that you felt that young people looked right through you, like you weren’t there. It shocked me because you were the most fascinating man I knew! 

I wonder if fathers feel that way sometimes. As society has challenged moms to “do it all,” have we honored our dads the same way and allowed them to spread their wings beyond confining cultural expectations? 

I think we’re getting there…but I want to be even more intentional with the young dads in my life -– to look right at them, not through them. They are also navigating changing times.

Dad, if our eyes met across a room today, I know that you’d give me the same reassuring look you always gave me. I’m secure enough now to fully translate its meaning. 

Though you met many expectations of typical fathers in your day, you had the sensitivity of fathers today to follow and respond to my deepest feelings.

Happy Fathers’ Day, and thank you to all the amazing guys out there for understanding their children!