Jerry Large
Seattle Times Staff Columnist
There is no parental contest.
Mother's reign is uncontested in most hearts, but this Sunday we celebrate the other parent.
Father's Day is much less intense than Mother's Day, with less commercial hype, and probably fewer expectations on the part of fathers.
This is so despite the evolution of gender roles that has taken place over the past couple of generations.
For a little while, I even thought we'd entered a period in which mothers and fathers could be nearly interchangeable, but my experience as a father overcame that notion.
There has been some convergence in roles, but lots of differences remain.
The federal government compiles statistics about family life and I looked at one report that focuses on fatherhood.
One poll measured teens' level of affection for their parents and it showed fathers trailed mothers, but only by a little bit. And the more involved the parent, the higher the affection rating.
In another survey in the report, mothers more often than fathers said they hugged their children daily. Ninety-eight percent of mothers of children from birth to 2 said they'd hugged their child every day for the past month, vs. 90 percent of fathers.
Some of the differences seemed even more meaningful.
The report also said dads spend less time than moms playing with kids or navigating their school experience.
Mothers play such a central role that sometimes fathers feel unsure of our role. Fathers can even feel unneeded.
Recently I sat in on a few sessions of the annual Children's Justice Conference.
One speaker said that usually when a social worker knocks on a family's door and a man answers, the visitor asks, where's the mother? There's no thought of discussing a child's welfare with the father.
Sometimes fathers take themselves out of the picture.
My mother raised her three sons alone. I only remember one brief conversation with my father, though he lived nearby with his wife and children.
My wife's parents divorced when she was quite young, so rather than relying on example, we read parenting books and took classes, then followed our instincts.
We probably were at a disadvantage, but some groping in the dark comes with the job.
I'm sure of one thing: Involvement and love will overcome a host of shortcomings.
My mother did such a good job of loving me that I maintained until recently that my father's absence was irrelevant. But sometimes when I'm spending time with my son, I know otherwise.
My father was a loving dad to the children he reared.
A couple of years ago, one of his daughters said she always wondered why her dad would point me out to her when I'd make the local paper for some small achievement. That was nice to hear, but made me wonder more why he stayed away.
I get things wrong as a father, but I won't make his mistake.
I'm permanently biased in favor of mothers, but when my son says, "Hey, Dad," I feel the importance of being a father.
"Hey, Dad, Mom says you need to drive me to Mercer Island."
jlarge@seattletimes.com
Copyright © 2008 The Seattle Times Company
