I always struggle with this.
Don’t get me wrong. Being festooned with presents is cool and the cards can stay up for a week.
But it was never something we celebrated at home.
A massive car accident in 1973 effectively ended my Dad’s parenting duties.
He existed for some time as an invalid, brain damaged, throat half paralysed, no coordination and struggling to come to terms with his deafness.
My brothers and I were onlookers. Left to the care of the Salv.ation Army for a while and then to my mother who was grieving for the child she lost in the accident while juggling being an officer in an active corps and learning to care for my Dad.
The Accident was such a major turning point in our lives that it was referred to as Before The Accident, and After The Accident for a year or two. It changed everything.
When he became more mobile he suffered from rages and delighted in antagonising my younger brother.
His behaviour drove me and my older brother out: we spent long days riding our bikes, fishing on Melbourne Pier, staying over at friends and eventually getting paper rounds which would start at dawn and carry on after school.
Late, when we emigrated back to Blighty we would get him a card but it was tokenism at best.
Personally, I felt orphaned.
Looking back I never felt guided or advised. Dad was there, physically, but not as a man to look up to.
My 18th was spent out with mates. He seemed unaware, asking whose birthday it was when he saw the cards.
This has affected me as a Dad, because I’m acutely aware of my role and influence on my kids.
There’s a lot of kidding goes on but they are still mortified if they do something wrong and have to tell me.
I try to live a good life and haven’t got any bad habits.
The rubbish you hear about other men doing is alien to me: infidelity, gambling, drinking, beating, absenteeism etc.
It makes me boring in some people’s eyes but at least my kids will look back and not see a trail of destruction.
Since his passing a few years ago I’ve thought about him a lot and what he would have done or said or decided at times IF The Accident hadn’t happened.
I was 9 and he was 46 when it happened.
I’m 52 and my kids are 8-17 so I’m in uncharted territory here.
What little I can recall of him Before The Accident is of no use to me in parenting my brood.
But as a man I wish him well. Maybe he could understand a little of what he’d lost as he saw us grow and become independent.
It’s not something he ever talked about.
The children always sent him Fathers day cards and he was present as Grandad watching over celebrations when his health allowed.
RIP Dad and Happy Fathers Day.
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