FATHERS DAY 2019

            I’m surprised to discover that it’s been seven years since I published a Fathers Day column here.  I’m not surprised to discover that I have a somewhat different perspective now than I had then.  Nothing stands still.

            One of the privileges of a career spent as a psychotherapist/family therapist was the chance to study family systems theory (in several forms), and the reality of multi-generational transmission of patterns.

            I slowly became aware that when I sat in a room with a client, there were at three generations of patterns in front of me.  If a client and I became very well acquainted, we could soon spot together powerful evidence of patterns of behavior and reactions that could be traced directly at least to grandparents, and we often suspected further back than that.  

            It’s not enough to make me believe in ghosts, but I was more than once aware, in my own home, of bit of my behavior that I could trace to my own grandfather—though often I wasn’t aware of them until very late.  I’m so grateful that I got to know my canny, clever, funny but taciturn paternal grandfather, because there were strands to his style that I can now remember in my father and, occasionally, even spot in myself.

            As s child, typically, I was far more aware of my father’s shortcomings than I was of his gifts.  As time passed that balance slowly shifted, but when I became a father, one of my prayers was to be able to be a better father than my father was.  In at least some ways I think that hope was gratned—though that’s not really for me to assess. I can’t help wondering how my children remember (and will remember) mystruggles to be a good father.

            But then—wonder of wonders—I watched as myson, to the best of my ability to assess, became a better father to his sons than I was to him.  An amazing achievement, and gift to me.

            SO—is that not perhaps the best we fathers can hope for—to give better than we were given?  No matter how good our fathers were, if we can be even better fathers to our children, we have made the world just a bit better than when we found it—and that is a gift the world will always need.

            So thanks again to mydad, for all the things he did right; thanks for the privilege of having been allowed to a father; congrats to my son for his successes in being a great father. But it still astonishes me now and then to catch glimpses in hisfathering of the styles of myfather—his grandfather.

            May the world continue to grasp that no matter how marvelous the influences of mothers are, we will always need strong and loving fathers—as many as we can get.  In-the-home fathers, divorced fathers, stepfathers, adoptive fathers—men who can learn and show the best of what it means to balance love and strength and humility and grace and discipline and all the other gifts we need from our fathers.  Salute to all of you fathers who are still working at it!

Ralph Milligan

Fathers Day 2019]