What Children Need from Dad

My father-in-law, dead now almost 20 years, used to pride himself on being "a good provider." Ironically, this was usually said in a defensive way, as if he suspected that he wasn't. "Whatever else, at least I'm a good provider." By this, he meant that he earned a good income and his family had many nice things. He was a broken man who did not feel love and did not extend it to others. The nice things were a poor substitute.

My own dad was emotionally remote in a different way. Family overwhelmed him, and he spent long hours in the basement or his study, coming out to preside over family dinners and occasionally taking one of us hostage to serve as his helper. He was a brilliant and talented man, but he was also a mystery.

My Dad in 1943 or 1944, working his way through school as a nanny

Dad died six months ago, and I inherited most of his household, including the family photo albums, boxes of ephemera, letters written to my mother during World War II, and a big binder of his published writings from the 1930s onward. If family overwhelmed my dad emotionally, his legacy has equally overwhelmed me. It is almost too much to comprehend.

Almost. He left a treasure trove behind, and I am rediscovering him through it, one scrap at a time. Dad was a writer, and when he turned 70, he put together a huge binder of his published writings, Tappings on the Keys. Someone (he? my mom? someone hired for the task?) carefully typed out every word, a chore that boggles the mind.

Dad started writing for the school paper in junior high and wrote for his high school and college papers. When I was a teen, he had a column in our town's weekly newspaper for a couple of years. He also did free lance writing, and worked in advertising and marketing for several different companies, writing for internal publications.

After the war, he wrote advertising copy for GE at the same time and place that Kurt Vonnegut was more famously employed, the Schenectady plant that served as the inspiration for Vonnegut's 1955 story "Deer in the Works." Dad never met Vonnegut, who worked in public relations.  I used to fantasize that, had he not had so many mouths to feed so quickly, he might have made a living at writing. But his gift was in Op Ed, not in fiction.

Years ago, I saw a bibliography that cited a piece he wrote for Parents' Magazine in 1953, "What Children Need from Dad." It was a shock to come across my dad's name in that context, but when my local library didn't have an archived copy, I didn't look further. So I was glad to find it in the binder.

Many of his essays and editorials are followed by his (then) present-day thoughts, but this piece stands alone. I found it odd, presenting love for a child as a "troublesome" and difficult thing to find time for, a competition for scarce resources. He admonishes fathers to stop making excuses and man up, as painful as that will be.

I'd like to know whether he believed that. He brushed our hair and sang to us and encouraged our creative efforts. Our photo albums record trips and adventures with Dad. Among the things he saved was an early Mother's Day present he helped my older sister and brother make. I want to believe he was aiming for his audience (and for the extra bucks he made writing the piece), setting himself above those "other guys." But he was also a harsh critic of himself, so maybe he was writing out of guilt at having brushed us off once too many times.

This is the first Father's Day I haven't been searching for a card to capture my feelings without drowning them in sentiment. Dad is gone, but in some ways, he is more present than ever.