The best in the world
Sunday, June 13, 2010 at 7:08PM 
Today is Father’s Day in Belgium, but in our house the celebrations began last Wednesday.
My 5-year old little girl just couldn’t keep the secret any longer. As soon as I got home, there she was standing at the front door with a cardboard tie that she had painted in brightly coloured stripes.
“Open it!” she cried, “It says something inside. I wrote it all on my own.”
Dear Dad, I love you.
You are the brest Dad in the worl
d.
J.
“Do you like it?” she inquired, her face beaming with pride as I read aloud her carefully written message.
Like it? I thought. Your words are more beautiful than a Shakespearean sonnet.
Waking up on Father’s Day, however, I couldn’t help but think that most of us Dads (or Mums, for that matter) spend a considerable amount of time feeling anything but ‘the best in the world’ – and certainly not worthy of such unconditional praise.
How can you say that I am the best? When you speak to me, I don’t always hear you; when you want to play with me, I am often too busy to give you any more of my time; when you look to me for comfort, I sometimes struggle for the right words.
As our children grow, they come to understand us better and are less shy when it comes to telling us quite how far we have failed to live up to their teenage expectations. And I guess it’s normal for them to assume (and make sure they tell us regularly) that parents are always ‘greener on the other side’.
The point is, though, we’re all doing our best at navigating our way along the treacherous path of parenthood without as much as a route map, let alone a magic wand! And if it felt hard at the beginning, when everything was fluffy pink and blue, we soon realize that the road never really straightens out. Quite the opposite, in fact! This particular story contains so many twists and turns, you really can never see what’s coming next – just around the next bend or birthday.
OK, so some Dads are better than others. Objectively, that has to be true. Being a parent, though, is not really about coming first – it’s about surviving the experience and producing a set of children that are ready to go and make for themselves a happy, successful, and ethical life. Whether they eat organic vegetables every night or can play the violin, in my view, is just a bonus.
Thinking about being a Dad on Father’s Day, I find myself turning to the practical wisdom of 73-year old Mr. Halpern Senior, who seems to have done a decent enough job – even if his style was somewhat unorthodox.
And for those of you who don’t already know, this Dad’s words of advice and sharp-tongued quips have been turned into an international sensation by his son, Justin Halpern, in the book Sh*t My Dad Says (Boxtree, 2010).
Here’s a flavour, just to get you gripped.
On toilet training
“You are 4 years old. You have to sh*t in the toilet. This is not one of those negotiations where we’ll go back and forth and find a middle ground. This ends with you sh*tting in the toilet.”
On making a Christmas list
“You ranked the 25 presents you want, or order of how much you want them? Are you insane? I said tell me what you want for Christmas, not make a f****** college football poll.”
On LEGO
“Listen, I don’t want to stifle your creativity, but that thing you built there, it looks like a pile of sh*t.”
Mr. Halpern, like many of us I guess, would never have said he was the best Dad in the world – and could hardly be regarded as a traditional role model.
But he loves his son – and his son knows that. And perhaps that's all that really matters.
Putting the book down, I decide to call my father. He is happy to hear me – if not a little surprised to receive my best wishes for the day.
Apparently, where he lives, Father’s Day is still a week away. So, once again, the celebrations are beginning early.
Reader Comments (1)
Yes, it’s so true: the love of parents gives protection for life to his children
But if we should define the role of parents in two words…?
In my opinion it is simply to help them to find the harmony within themselves and with the world around
If we try to forget for a moment all the snobs clichés imposed to us by this crazy society of paradoxes, the violin is not a gadget, not a bonus, it is one of the means, one of the keys to enter inside of our being and probably find there much easier and without fear the responses on so many difficult questions of life and finely to become an entire human being...