MindSpinner

I meet a lot of adolescents without fathers in their lives. Many of them write about their missing fathers, and I can see clearly in their writing how the absence of a father has rolled like a great wave through their lives. An African American boy laments his father’s death in a shooting and wonders how life would have been different if his father had lived - would he be more successful now in school? Would he have stayed out of trouble? An accomplished senior girl writes about the father who left and never came back, lost to an addiction. She laments the idolized father her little girl self lost; she vents anger at the father who abandoned her for an addiction. She strives to overcome, and she succeeds, but the hurt places still hurt. Another girl dwells not on the father who left but on the stepfather who became dad. At home, I watch two adolescents struggle with what it means to have a Sunday dad who is otherwise largely unavailable.

Some themes seem clear. Fathers are important. Children have a great need to think well of their fathers, to know that their fathers love them, to look to their fathers for role models. Without stalwart, involved fathers, they feel lost and adrift. They grasp elsewhere for self-esteem. They suffer. Some of them are deeply damaged.

I listened this morning to a segment on Father’s Day on NPR’s News and Notes from Ed Gordon, featuring an interview with Leonard Pitts, author of Becoming Dad : Black Men and the Journey to Fatherhood. Leonard Pitts weaves his own experiences with an abusive father and his journey to fatherhood with stories of other African American men and their experiences as sons and fathers. I immediately found myself listening on a level that transcends race. I was most moved by accounts of “step-up-to-the-plate” dads, of men who step in to raise other men’s children when biological dads aren’t around.

I don’t have a living father any more to send a card to on Father’s Day, so instead I’ll just extend my gratitude for every biological father and step-up-to-the-plate dad who enfolds the life of a child in his strength, love, guidance, and support, no matter how hard that task turns out to be.