A day for those who ‘father’

Thirteen months ago, The Enterprise published a column I’d dedicated to my mum on the occasion of Mother’s Day. And when I didn’t follow it up in June with a Father’s Day column, a reader emailed to express disappointment. “I hoped you might share some of your dad’s influence as well,” she wrote. 

It hadn’t even occurred to me to do so. Father’s Day always struck me as the obligatory counterpart to its May-based companion, and that’s how lots of Americans viewed the holiday throughout the first half of the 20th Century’s efforts to formally establish it. The parental roles are just eminently different in the recognition they warrant; motherhood is something to celebrate, while fatherhood is something to expect. Right?

That attitude probably derives from the language itself. After all, the infinitive verb “to mother” means “to nurture” and “care for,” while “to father” means, well, something else entirely. It’s that borderline unprintable definition unsuitable for a family newspaper that for most of recorded history encapsulated a father’s primary role. No wonder that so many, for so long, conceived of fatherhood as a duty to be performed rather than a sacrifice worthy of admiration.

But in observing the influence of my brothers-in-law on the development of my nieces and nephews over the past year, I’ve had occasion to reconsider my own dad’s role in my life. And on this Father’s Day, I’d like to reinterpret what “to father” means to my sisters and me.    

Because it’s probably most accurate to say that “to father” is to make the world’s best sandwiches, and its best soups, from what you’ve grown in its best garden. It means building your kids a tree fort that operates as both a castle and a pirate ship, and then telling tall tales of the heroes who sword fight on its ramparts and rafters.

It’s to inexhaustibly demand that your children turn off the lights, turn down the thermostat, and turn the other cheek in the face of schoolyard bullies. But it also means telling your 10-year-old son to toughen up, to “mentally adjust yourself,” and to “put up your dukes” when there are no cheeks left to turn.

“To father” means racing home from work and changing into the team jersey so you can coach your son’s Kiwanis sports teams, even when he isn’t any good on baseball or soccer fields — just as it means taking it in stride when he knocks out your front tooth in a notorious wrestling match because his proper place is on the mats.

It means sitting with your 6-year-old son on the first day of summer camp when he’s shy to the point of terror, telling him it’s OK to cry, and waiting with him while he does. And it means intuiting when it’s time to leave after you drop him off at college 12 years later, as the confidence you’ve instilled in him over the intervening decade fuels him forth into a new social unknown without even a backwards glance.

Recently, I asked my sisters what “to father” meant to them. Ever the narcissist, I was surprised to learn about all the custom-tailored parenting of which I’d been oblivious. For example, it turns out that “to father” means holding your daughter’s hand and squeezing it three times to silently say “I love you” when she’s a sad little 5-year-old. And it means editing her work product 29 years later when, at 34, she still asks for feedback before a big presentation. 

“To father” means helping your daughter calm her debilitating childhood migraines with gentle visualization exercises, and coaxing her through panic attacks by massaging her back and asking her to describe which birds she hears singing until the calm returns. It means teaching your daughters the “Girl Power!” rallying cry, and supporting them in becoming archaeologists, lawyers, doctors, and eventually mothers. Then, when life doesn’t go according to plan, “to father” means reaching out to catch your daughter when her dreams fall apart and life crashes down all around her.  

“When I felt stupid in math, Dad told me it was OK to be smart about other things,” Caitlin told me. “He introduced me to an entire library of philosophy, history, and English, all of which shaped my understanding of the cosmos.”

“He supported my decision to go to law school and encouraged me to stick with it when I questioned why I went,” Robin said. “He’s my biggest champion and best friend. He loves my baby girls and protects them so fiercely.” 

“Mom made the idea of becoming a doctor attainable,” Brenna wrote me, “but Dad was my motivation for being the best at it. He’s proof that, if you dedicate yourself to making the world around you just a teeny bit better, you can find the space to be your weird little self.” Word. 

There are other definitions of “to father” that bespeak phenomena of which my sisters and I were once unaware amidst the illusion of safety and stability that Dad so fervently guarded. He might not even realize that my sisters and I know that “to father” means having always dreamt of opening a little bookstore in Vermont, only to wake up one day to realize that you’re sharing a home with four babies under the age of 6, and thus dutifully trudging through three decades of 60-hour workweeks driven by a frantic desperation to provide for your kids.

He may not be aware that my sisters and I know that “to father” is to lie awake in bed after you’ve lost your job and don’t know how you’ll ever support that family of six, only to take a monumental risk — and ultimately build a thriving business which now, in turn, supports the livelihoods of coworkers he regards as his second family.

But, at its core, “to father” probably most closely means “to teach” — to teach your children how to laugh at themselves and enjoy life’s inexorable nonsense. It’s to teach them how to fire a gun, to chop firewood, and to shake hands like you mean it. “To father” is to teach your son how to ride a bike, and then some years later how to drive a car — twice equipping him with the freedom to set out on his own even when Mom wants to keep her baby right at home.  

An aside: Soon after I learned to drive, I deemed it my duty as a big brother to pass that precious knowledge onto my 12-year-old sister. Taking advantage of our rural backcountry roads and a late afternoon when Mom and Dad were nowhere to be found, I adjusted the driver’s seat so Brenna’s tiny legs could reach the pedals. Her command of the clutch was impressively innate.  But as she piloted us back into the driveway, we realized we’d been caught. There was Dad, at the fence, watching his pre-adolescent daughter shift into neutral. From shotgun, I pulled the emergency brake and prepared to face the music. We took a deep breath and, exiting the car, confronted Dad’s raised eyebrow.

“I’m not sure your mom would approve of that,” he said, clearly unsure of what proper parenting protocol now dictated. Then he walked off, and my sister and I were silent. She turned to me.  “Ever get the sense that Dad’s just winging it?” she asked.

Yup. All the time. You know who else did? Dad. As we were growing up, he would so often proclaim, “I have no idea what I’m doing” that it practically became his battle cry, accompanied as it was by helpless flailing whenever Mom’s out-of-town trips stranded him with the kids. Yet it was in those moments that Dad bequeathed unto us the ancient arts of subversion and stealth, as together we would all seditiously devour illicit sugar cereals and the contraband Nintendo gaming system he rented from Blockbuster. 

Because Dad was skeptical of any authority, even his own. That’s an ethos he wears on his shoulders (literally, as his fiery red shoulder-length mane enters its fifth unabashed decade). And while “mothering” may entail imparting unparalleled literary skills through a robust regime of bedtime stories, “fathering” is to spin your children into a frenzy of giggles by taking extreme artistic license with the children’s books you deem in need of narrator intervention. Where else does a child develop the absurdist sense of humor necessary to endure life’s unrelenting tragedies? 

My father’s politics were the most unique and defining aspect of his parenthood. Seemingly divergent perspectives weren’t contradictory — they were just Dad. For example, he viewed paying taxes as the highest of patriotic privileges, but was leery of a strong central government.  He believed the posted speed limit was sacrosanct, but that the proper scheduling of certain controlled substances was up for debate.

He taught my sisters and me to honor the police, despite a worldview forged by the civil rights movement. He’s been an avowed conscientious objector since his Vietnam-era antiwar activism, but was never prouder of me than when I commissioned in the Army. He staunchly supported Obamacare, but largely out of a principled conservative ethos that everyone should have to pay their fair share (“why should I foot the ER bill for someone too irresponsible to carry health insurance?”). Vegetarianism was his core moral philosophy, and something he made cool before it was cool.  

While it’s true that whatever intellect I possess is likely an inheritance from my mother, it’s the charm, wit, and work ethic I get from Dad that ever gave it any agency. Yet despite his limitless charisma, he’s always been intensely private. Which is why the accompanying photo prominently featuring his nipple likely embarrasses him, as did my school suspensions and adolescent run-ins with law enforcement. Have I mentioned that “to father” is to forgive?

Of the many undeserved societal privileges that Providence afforded me, the most fundamental was that my dad was always around. I never had to question it. He might’ve worked long hours and on weekends, yet somehow, even now, Dad’s always just there.

Morbid though it may be, I often contemplate life when he’s gone. Like, even as a child, I knew that Dad just didn’t have a sufficiently refined taste for macaroni art; only Mom could properly appreciate the nuanced subtlety of finger-paintings worthy of the fridge. But nowadays, I can’t help but wonder: If Dad isn’t around to witness all that he’s set me up to accomplish, what’s the point? 

I guess the answer can be divined from yet another definition: “To father” is to instill in your kids a robust ethical framework that guides them long after you’re gone. And though Dad has never cared much about legacy, being a legacy of which he’d be proud is one way to ensure he remains forever present in my life.   

In the last half-decade, the phrase “to father” has taken on a new connotation — expanding to encompass what it means “to grandfather.” Yet notwithstanding that evolution, there’s one meaning that remains the same as it ever was: “To father” is to be my single biggest inspiration for who and what I am. 

Despite my dad’s nearly infinite supply of daily mistakes, perhaps one reason I’ve shied away from having kids myself is the fact that I couldn’t possibly be half the father my father was. No child deserves anything less. So Happy Father’s Day, Deano. Thanks for literally everything.

Captain Jesse Sommer is a lifelong resident of Albany County, currently deployed to Afghanistan with the U.S. Army’s 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne). He welcomes your thoughts at .