Fathers

“My father used to play with my brother and me in the yard.  Mother would come out and say, ‘You’re tearing up the grass,’ ‘We’re not raising grass,’Dad would reply. ‘We’re raising boys’.    -Harmon Killebrew

With Father’s Day around the corner, I have been thinking a lot about the role fathers play in the lives of their children. We don’t need to refer to the countless studies that indicate children are better off with fathers providing guidance and love.  The difference a positive male role model makes is obvious, but can’t always be a biological father for one reason or another.  These men who step up and fulfill a need that sometimes even biological parents fail to do deserve just as much to be honored on Father’s Day.  My own two sons are blessed with many positive role models that are not their biological fathers, and I especially appreciate these men, men who provide them guidance and love in the way that a father does, men who have the kind of relationship with my sons that I can’t ever have, no matter how hard I try.  Two of these such men are my own father and grandfather.  They take my sons into the mountains and are teaching them to cut firewood.  They are teaching them how to be ‘tough’.  How baseball and football are played.  How to shoot a gun.  Much more than I am capable of sharing alone.

 

Recognizing the importance of these men, I decided I wanted to have photographs of them together to formally acknowledge the importance of their relationship, and serve as a reminder for my boys as they grow:

I also have been thinking about the men who are in the same role as I am, trying to be both mother and father to their children.  Does our society, which readily labels men ‘deadbeats’ provide acknowledgement for these men that defy that stereotype?  I don’t know, but I decided this year to take a little time and do so myself in the one way I can, with a few pictures.  First my longtime friend Andy, who has been a kick-butt father to his two young children, Ivie and Hunter.  Then my friend Curt, who is likewise a kick-butt father to his son Bradley.  These are the kinds of dads that men should try to be.

 

A big thank you to all the men out there who step up to the role of being a father, a daddy, a friend.  We all love you!

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