Being a Great Dad

It is Father’s Day on Sunday (June 15th, 2008) in the UK, USA and many other countries around the world. This year, the day will be especially poignant for me as for the first time in my life on father’s day I will be without my father who passed away last December. So this year is truly a time to remember just what he meant to me and what he will always mean to me.
Father’s Day is becoming an important day of celebration and gradually catching up with the more popular Mother’s Day worldwide. Now the fifth most-purchased greeting cards in the USA are Father’s Day cards.
Whereas Mother’s Day is seen to be more sentimental, Father’s Day is seen more as a day of practical gift giving such as DIY tools etc. However the most popular Father’s Day present is apparently the gift of a tie.
No matter what you call your father — dad, papa, pop and so on — today is a chance for you to celebrate your father and recognise just what he is and what he has done for you. Father’s Day is your one chance in the year to give your father a pat on the back for who he is and what he has done for you.
I believe Father’s Day is also an opportunity to review just what being a father means to you and how you can become a better father to your children.
I imagine there is so much time, frustration, stress and sacrifice involved in being a parent. Occasions such as Father’s Day allow us to reflect on just how worthwhile it all was. If I had appreciated the efforts of my parents when I was younger, I would probably have been a lot nicer to them and more appreciative of their hard work. Maybe they should have classes in how to be nice to your parents!
I do not have children of my own, but have been blessed with a number of nephews, nieces, young cousins and any number of young people in our extended family. I still recall my great joy the first time I received a Father’s Day card from my nephew.
Also the children of many friends have found a second Home at my place. I even have a special toy box for those times when I have young visitors. There was a time when children visiting us would rush straight upstairs and bring down the toy box, promptly emptying the contents on the floor with a great relish.
Though I sometimes wonder what it would be like to have children of my own, I do feel that I have had the best of both worlds. I do also wonder just what sort of a father I would have been. A good one I hope, taking the best of the lessons from my father and also from my mother, and combining these with all my own observations and learnings from the last few years of personal growth and exploration.