Father’s Day is this weekend. And I’m embarrased to admit I was slightly blindsided. Afterall, ads promoting dad’s special day have been on televsion, in magazines or the newspaper ads practically since the Monday after Mother’s Day. But I’d like to think that I’m like many people, who thought we had at least couple of weeks left. But alas, it is the final stretch.
This time of the year one could call the Triple Crown of gift-giving, after the horseracing equivalent: The Kentucky Derby, The Preakness and The Belmont Stakes (I won’t digress about this year’s Big Brown mystery). The human version of the Triple Crown involves Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and the obligatory wedding this time of year that most of us will either attend, decline to attend or send a check or gift to.
All these days honor life’s most precious relationships. They’re relationships bound by love and commitment… and two of them are bound by the Fifth Commandment, “Honor thy Father and thy Mother.”
Honoring Mom is a no-brainer. A mother is the child’s lifeline, its source of nutrition and comfort for nine months in the womb, and then protection and comfort and food after birth. The mother-child bond creates this innate response in us to pay homage to her.
But honoring Dad is a little different. The father is the first “other” in a child’s life. The first person the baby knows other than the mother. The first ’stranger’ a child will learn to trust. But fathering today has lost much of the luster and prestige of the “Father Knows Best” years. However, it doesn’t mean fathers are any less important. In fact, according to the experts, a father’s involvement in a child’s upbringing is critical.
“Men have their own repertoire of parenting skills that’s different from the Mother,” says David Blankenhorn, author of Fatherless America and The Future of Marriage. To paraphrase Blankenhorn, he says while mothers generally nurture and protect, and fathers are more risk-takers and tend to be less afraid of danger. A child needs both parenting styles as part of a balanced upbringing. Blankenhorn, who also heads “the Institute for American Values”, says children who have fathers living in the household grow up to be more comfortable with strangers, and are more willing to engage in the larger world. Girls with fathers involved in their lives have a better self image and often make better relationship choices. While boys with fathers, good fathers that is, will be more respectful of women.
And statistcally speaking, when fathers aren’t in the household, the results can be disastrous for the child. According to the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, 90 percent of homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes; 63 percent of youth suicides are from fatherless homes. Fatherless children are twice as likely to drop out of school or repeat a grade, and were had the highest odds of winding up incarcerated. Also one of the leading indicators that a child will live in poverty, is whether or not he has a father in the household. In America that would be about 38 to 43 percent of children.
Now that I’ve painted a grim picture of the state of fatherhood, let me give some examples of men whose very lives offer inspiration.
Mark Forrest is an Irish Tenor who lives in Virginia. Years ago he gave up dreams of stardom and his name in lights on broadway, after his son was born with a severe defect and lived only five days. He began a spiritual journey that included the creation of the Faith & Family Foundation, an organization that raises money for special needs children. Mark sings full-time and produces his own albums. He and his wife now have seven boys ages 1 to 14, two of whom are blind and deaf. He says “burying a child caused me to look at what’s important” … “Life’s become so busy. What’s it all for?” Mark sings only on weekends and is always home for his sons Monday through Thursday. He no longer has dreams of becoming a household name, but only of “being the best father I can be.”
Michael Scalfani, is a retired car salesmam from Staten Island, New York. He’s been married 50 years to his wife Angela. They have three sons and six grandchildren. They volunteer as marriage preparation counselors at their church. Mr. Scalfani says the father’s No. 1 priority is to keep the family together, to communicate with his children the values they’ll need in life and to live out those values. He says “the role is really being there” just “being there for them.”
And finally Chris Bell of Sussex County in New Jersey. He’s a married father of seven children, one biological, six adopted. Five of the children have special needs. Chris opened and runs Covenant House, a series of homes where young pregnant women who’ve been abandoned by their boyfriends, can come and live during their pregnancies. Chris says the bottom line is, “kids need to be loved.”
These men are just a few of the hundreds of thousand of unsung heroes of fatherhood. Men who love their families and believe its a privelige to sacrifice for them. These men who would have it no other way. So this Father’s Day, salute dad for a job well done!
