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Best gifts for Father’s Day? Respect and harmony
Paul Sassone
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Updated: June 14, 2012 12:50PM
If you’re one of the lucky ones, you know just what to get your dad for Father’s Day.
He fishes, or bowls, or builds things — in short has a hobby, something for which you can buy him stuff.
But for my father, and I think a lot of other fathers, there’s not much to talk about except working and parenting. So what do you get such a dad? A lunch box? Another kid to parent?
Unfortunately for me, I don’t have to worry about what to get my father for Father’s Day. He passed away quite a while ago.
But each year when Father’s Day rolls around I can’t help but think about my dad and what I would get him for Father’s Day. Nothing to do with computers, I know that. He liked to watch TV, but that was as far as he was prepared to go with gadgets.
No, things are not what my dad would want. He lived simply. He went to work and came home to help mom raise four kids.
You know what I think my dad would have liked for Father’s Day? Something I’m afraid he didn’t often receive.
I think my father would have liked me to agree with him.
Let me explain. When you are a little boy, your dad is everything to you. You imitate him, follow him around, make it plain that you want to be just like him.
But from the teen years on up you morph into someone who feels the need to be as unlike your father as possible.
That has to confuse and hurt a father.
And a wise guy like me must have been a particular trial to my dad. I would disagree and give him an argument about everything, from politics to which spaghetti sauce tasted better. And I just became more argumentative when I went to college.
My poor father.
For ages it has been a man’s right to pontificate around his own dinner table about the shape the world is in today, and to have his opinions heard and respected by his family.
But no, I would challenge him and argue almost every point. Not a satisfactory end to a hard day’s work. And the funny thing is that my views now are pretty much what my father’s views were then.
Life is funny.
So, I put it for your consideration: Whatever else you give dad for Father’s Day, maybe agree with him. It’s not about right and wrong. It’s about respect.
