Thankful To Forever Be Daddy's Little Princess

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Take Action - The state of Massachusetts recently commenced a campaign to lasso "dead-beat dads" and to do everything is its power to force these men to pay over-due and greatly needed child support.  Wanted posters with mug, physical descriptions and even the debt they owe stare back at me as I wait for the T in the Davis Square.  I applaud Massachusetts for its timely assessment of a problem plaguing our entire nation, yet I am far from celebrating.

The mere presence of these posters, the necessity of this campaign, disgusts me.  Further, the fact that these posters will bring Massachusetts national recognition and a feeling of victory over this plague sickens me.  The problem will not be solved with the signing of a mission statement or with a bill stating the infractions of dead-beat dads are worthy of jail time and especially not with the signature of the aforementioned paternal figure on a child support check.

Why?  Because a father should be there himself.  He should be up at 5 a.m. for his daughter's first kiddie swim meet, and then there to buy her ice cream afterwards.  Years later, as midnight approaches on his daughter's first date, he should again be awake, but pretending not to be.  He should help capture caterpillars in the back yard and replace Benny the goldfish with Benny the goldfish II before his son notices a problem.  When his college-aged daughter considers attempting at least half of the Boston Marathon, he should talk like she's already won it.  Perhaps I live in some sort of paternal utopia, but this is how it was for me and roughly how I think it should be.

Parenting four daughters, as is my father's case, surely does not come without its trials and challenges.  I myself am currently trying to deal with my younger sister beginning to date.  I get this sick felling in my stomach when I see the guy at the door, his hair gelled back and a scared smile across his face as my beaming sister puts on her coat to leave.  I wonder if the unsettled, nauseated feeling in my stomach is comparable to what's churning in my father's heart and mind.  It probably isn't, as I surely was not the one to equip my sister with a cell phone or the one to tattoo dad's pager number into her brain before she entered the scary world of dating high school boys.

I imagine parenthood to be a compilation of such trials of the soul, of attempts to balance concern and support for your child, of pretending to be completely encouraging when your heart cries out for you to pull her from the grasp of the homecoming king, sweep her back inside the house, wrap her in your arms and commit her for life to an all-girls Catholic school.

After mauling over such convictions, I have come to the conclusion that, throughout all of this, if a parent can not only mentally survive, but can also manage to teach his child a thing or two, that parent deserves praise and utmost respect, unlike his or her "dead-beat" counterparts.  Further, this respect should not be given as a result of comparison to less-than-stellar peers whose mugs I look at while waiting for the Red Line, but on the basis of merit alone.

I have a photo sitting on my desk which was taken May 21, 1998, the day I graduated from high school.  Through tears, my mom and I smile at the camera, but my father is not looking at the lens.  He is captured in time, with his gaze on me and a broad smile across his face.

Typical of my dad.  Despite the chaos of flowers, balloons, tassels, weeping relatives and one of my grandparents behind the camera surely yelling, "Dennis, look here!" my fathers attention was on his family.  In this simple photograph, I am reminded of the lessons and values my father placed in me, and I daily consider myself fortunate to have such a supportive and devoted father.  All children should be so lucky.

It's time to go running now.  I don't really want to go.  Work was long today, and my feet are tired, "Third Rock from the Sun" will be on in four minutes.  My mind and body tell me to throw myself onto the couch and not to move anything but my fingers on the remote control.  Another voice reminds me that the Boston Marathon, be it the 2000 or 2001 race, isn't getting any further away.  Regardless, though, whether I spend the evening with my Nike Cross Trainers or with French Stuart, in one person's mind, I have already won the race.