We weren’t planning anything in particular for Father’s Day since my husband wasn’t even going to be home. He left in the wee hours of the morning and shall return sometime tomorrow evening. That’s what life is like when you are married to a railroader. He comes and goes with the trains. No schedule. Little secured home time. And plans are futile since they most likely will be interrupted. Does that make him a bad father? According to an article appearing in Time Magazine, it just might.
The folks at Hallmark are going to have a very good day on June 17. That’s when more than 100 million of the company’s ubiquitous cards will be given to the 66 million dads across the U.S. in observation of Father’s Day. Such a blizzard of paper may be short of the more than 150 million cards sold for Mother’s Day, but it’s still quite a tribute. What’s less clear is whether dads–at least as a group–have done a good enough job to deserve the honor.
I thought it a little telling that the programs I stumbled across on the radio this past week were dominated with the message that Americans are bad fathers.
I certainly do not defend the fathers who have divorced and walked out of their children’s lives, defaulting on child support and failing to make contact. But at the same time, it seems that we have spent at least one generation telling men that we don’t need them. We have stripped the family down to the “nuclear family,” thereby removing many of the positive contributions that the extended family makes to the survival of the family. Divorce has been made easier and more socially acceptable. Its effect on children is pretty universally accepted, but that rarely seems to be offered as a motivation to stay together. After all, isn’t it better for the children to live with the effects of divorce than the effects of living in a home where the parents do not get along?
And then there is that group of fathers to which my husband appears to belong.
Even fathers in intact families spend a lot less time focused on their kids than they think: in the U.S. fathers average less than an hour a day (up from 20 minutes a few decades ago), usually squeezed in after the workday.
I’m not sure when else our fathers are to be spending time with their children. Since the advent of the industrial revolution, most work outside the home. Since the sexual revolution, a good many mothers do as well. The bonds of family are being broken, and we are being told it is good for children. After all, they need that socialization offered in a quality preschool program to be successful in school, right? A lot of mothers these days are not spending much more time with their off spring.
I do think involved fathers are very important. And that involvement through provision alone is not quite enough. But my husband’s decision to take a position which could support his family because he wanted someone home with the children hardly makes him a bad father. For seven days, he comes and goes. For three days, he makes the most of the time he has with his family. But he has made sure that his children are raised by someone who loves them more than life itself. Despite the insanity of his schedule, he has given them consistency, permanency and love.
Everyone is forced to make sacrifices in this world. But are those sacrifices for our own interests or those of others? I think that might be a better measure of whether fathers are worthy of the honor bestowed upon them this one day out of the year.
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You know, when I was growing up my father worked in the oil fields–off shore once I was big enough to really know what he was doing. He worked 7 days out at sea and was home 7 day. The shifts rotated, so some weeks it was grave yard shift, other times daylight shift and then there was a 3rd shift, so he always slept the 1st few days he was home.
But we did more and saw more of him than most of my friends who had dads home every night. We went camping every week he was home in summer, we went on day road trips, he took us fishing and hiking and horseback riding and visiting; we had BBQ’s and dinners and holiday street gatherings; we went to parades and carnivals and fairs.
Just because he was gone 6 months out of the year did not make him any less a father. In fact, we loved it! He loved it! And he loved to do things with us…that job and that schedule allowed him to do the things that he wanted with his family.
So no, a father doesn’t have to be there day in and day out to be known, appreciated, effective, sincere, or maintained a huge influence in his childrens. His love and concern and sincerity is what matters most…because when my dad was there, he was our whole world without changing the daily routine and life that my mother maintained year round.
And he still is a very big part of our lives!
Thanks for sharing that, Shawna! And I wish the railroad would go to that kind of a schedule. I’ve been telling my hubby that for three years, as if he had any control over it.
My husband was encouraged by your post. He feels so much pressure to provide for his family and also be here with us. You helped put things in perspective. My DH can’t be here as much as he would like but he has peace that his children are well loved every day by me.
Thanks for another thought provoking post!
Renae
Oh, Renae, thank you for letting me know that! The fact that he wants to spend more time at home certainly says a lot about him! And I loved your Father’s Day post, even though I think I only commented on your new blog as a whole…
“What’s less clear is whether dads–at least as a group–have done a good enough job to deserve the honor.”
I can’t believe someone had the nerve to write that!!! A good enough job to deserve a hallmark card? Give me a break!
This was a great post! I think you are so right - there is a big difference between a dad who walks out and doesn’t look back and a dad who is doing his best to provide for his family. In a traditional family a dad has to work otherwise the family isn’t going to have food, shelter, etc. That means the dad is away from his kids for whatever amount of time is necessary to do his job. That makes a GOOD father - not a bad one!
I’m not surprised, Americans are trying to rid the world of mentioning our Heavenly Father’s name and every holiday with it, why not Father’s Day too. What is this world coming to? It’s sad.
God Bless,
Amber
Thanks, momloves…and it is interesting to think exactly what a father has to do to deserve a card, isn’t it?
Amber, that is a good point. It seems to me part of that whole self-centeredness that is pervasive in our society. Now we can blame all our problems on absentee fathers, too. Not just the really bad ones who drank, or were abusive or who truly weren’t there. But the ones who worked every day and only spent 20 minutes focused on their children.
I’m willing to bet that a lot of that time when children tag along behind their father who is absently answering questions is more important than we think. “Quality time” is great…but so is the other kind of time when parents are simply there.