Mother’s Day is only a few days past and without implying a lack of importance, I wanted to turn towards the upcoming celebration of Fathers. We’ve taken a bit of a hiatus at Fatherhood Factor and it seemed best to crisan the reintroduction of our content with a focus on a day that calls for reflection and determination.
I initially thought about spending several hundred words working through the reason that Father’s Day is important. I thought about recounting why we needed a resurgence of committed dads and how we might go about accomplishing that.
To some extent, that’s exactly what I’m going to do… except with a much shorter narrative.
Having lost my dad when I was young, Father’s Day has taken on a very different meaning for me. When I was young, it meant very little, but as I’ve gotten older it has caused me to be much more introspective.
What has dawned on me over the years is that there are a couple of universal truths that are forced on everyone at Father’s Day.
Either we are uplifted by memories of encouragement and happiness, or we’re taken low by memories of hurt or abandonment.
Our lives might not have been dictated entirely by one or the other, but I’ve never talked with a single person that didn’t largely reflect on their dads in one of those two ways.
As a result, we have a couple of decisions to make:
1. We need to celebrate the dads that stuck in there and fought for us with every fiber of their being.
And/Or
2. We need to decide how we’re going to break the cycle if our dads did more harm than good.
So, take some time as Father’s Day approaches and decide on the legacy that you want to leave… regardless of the past that formed you.