Happy Father’s Day to all the fathers out there and to anyone who ever had a father too.
The big piece of chicken. I remember watching that Chris Rock stand up special years ago when my boys were younger and thinking, boy is he right. It really does seem like Mom’s get all the props these days. Things sure have changed since the days when fathers always knew best.
I used to watch “Father Knows Best” reruns just about every day when I was a kid. Most of you remember the show, I’m sure. The Anderson family patriarch may have gotten into a few scrapes now and then but mostly, it always worked out OK and Jim Anderson ended up almost always right. If you watch today’s depictions of dads, the narrative has changed. Today’s TV dads are…what’s the right word?
Oh, I know…Bozos!
There's a picture that was taken on June 3rd, 1998 of me and my dad, George Miller, standing outside the hospital nursery, watching his namesake Benjamin George Miller in the first hours of his life.
I can’t remember what I was thinking in that moment. I know I was exhausted. Maybe it was just grateful relief I was feeling that Jodi and Ben were both safe. She was back in the room recovering quietly and he was already thriving. I probably hadn’t had time to start thinking about what his life was going to be like or what kind of father I was going to be.
I do know that I wanted to be a good one.
I wanted to be a dad like my dad, a man I’ve always known I could trust and depend on. Like him, I wanted to be able to teach my sons about the things that really mattered in life, things like the importance of having integrity and being a person who was charitable to others, making sure they grew up to be honorable and humble servants. And I wanted to put them in a camper and drive them across the country to places they’d never believe and to experiences they’d never forget.
I also wanted to be a dad like my step-dad. I wanted my sons to feel like I was their best friend, whenever they needed one. And I wanted to teach them that life was meant to be lived and that life was meant to be fun and that it was OK to take chances, even if everybody else was telling you to play it safe.
And there were some things, I wanted to do that were different than both of my fathers. One thing was that I was going to kiss my boys. My fathers are both loving, affectionate men but a kiss for a son was not in their wheelhouses.
The first time I saw a man kiss his son, was when I my roommate, who was also a guy from Indianapolis and I drove home together for Thanksgiving break. When we got to his house, he invited me in to meet his family and as soon as we walked in the door, his dad jumped to his feet and came to his son with deliberate force. He took my friends face in both hands and planted a kiss squarely on his mouth, before he gabbed ahold of him and hugged the daylights out of him.
I wasn’t sure what to make of this display. I’d never seen anything like it. But one thing I knew for sure, was that my friend couldn’t ever doubt that he was loved by that man. As I drove on to my own homecoming that night, I remember making a vow to myself, that if I ever had sons, I would kiss them. I still kiss my boys, every chance I get, whether they like it or not.
Like most guys, I have made some mistakes as a father and I have sometimes found my level of character woefully below “Superdad” status. You see, simply having goals and actually knowing how to achieve them are two different things. Being a Dad is really just a giant experiment. Our parents didn’t know what they were doing either. It’s really just trial and error. When it came to being a father, I wanted to be Superman, but in truth, I was just a regular guy wearing a cape. It’s not the same.
The American Psychiatrist and writer Frank Pittman said, “Fathering is not something perfect men do, but something that perfects the man.” I believe he was absolutely right, but I have to admit that progress toward that perfection doesn’t always happen quickly or easily…at least it didn’t in my case.
Fathers’ Day, or rather my reaction to the holiday, has, it turns out, said a lot about my evolution as a father and a man.
My first Fathers’ Day was a wonderful experience. Ben had just turned a year old and like most babies, next to his mom, there was nobody he’d rather be with than me. The first year had been easier than I expected. Ben was sleeping through the night, he mostly smiled whenever I was around, and I was making enough money to keep him in diapers and formula. In short, I was pretty sure I was killing it and was probably a candidate for Dad of the year.
When kids are little like that, everything they do is awesome. I remember that I could sit for hours just watching the boys play. But, as the year’s went on, something started to change. Around the time our youngest was about five years old, Fathers’ Day began to sour a bit. I was still doing a bang-up job being a dad, as far as I was concerned. What was missing, however, was that I was not really receiving the accolades I felt like I deserved. As my boys continued to grow into their early teen years, this feeling that they were coming up short, grew right along with them and no matter what anyone did for me, no Fathers’ Day, quite measured up to my expectations.
I remember that during this time, I joked to a friend that being a father meant never having to say, “Your welcome.” Because nobody ever says, “Thank you”. And so, with that kind of mindset, Fathers’ Day for many years would become a day I would spend embroiled in self-pity and resentment.
I don’t know if there are dads in the congregation this morning who can relate to what I’m talking about. I do have to admit that there were other things going on inside of me during those years that I was unsuccessfully trying to manage.
When kids are babies, we set the bar for their achievements pretty low. If they sleep through the night and avoid peeing on you while you’re changing a diaper, they’re doing great. But as kids get older and they have more and more opportunity for success, they also occasionally fail.
As my boys moved into adolescence, I decided that it was my role to be my perception of the “Father Knows Best” guy. So, when my kids made mistakes, I would teach them by providing great detail on what they did wrong and then explain how much better I would have done it. I thought I was giving my boys life changing advice, but what they often heard, was criticism.
There’s great lesson in the Bible about being a good father. It comes from Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son. You all know the story about the wayward son who leaves home, only returning to his father after blowing the entirety of his inheritance. Instead of punishing him, his father welcomes him with arms wide open.
In Luke 15:20 it says, “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.”
Now that guy knew how to parent. He understood forgiveness. He was able to accept his son, warts and all and show him love, no matter what. Unconditional love, when it comes to raising children, is all that really matters. But that can be hard for a well meaning dad to do, especially when he’s trying to make sure his boys turn out almost as perfect as he was.
There was also a change happening in my sons as they got older. They began resenting me more and listening to me less. I felt them drifting farther and farther away from me and this left me feeling terribly sad.
Now, this kind of defiant behavior is fairly normal for most teenage boys. I don’t remember the reason the prodigal son left home, but I‘m sure he thought it was a good one…He was probably tired of his dad having to be right all the time.
Their teens were brutal for all of us. One of them, kept breaking rules and the other one just kept breaking stuff. They were mostly being regular teenage boys, doing the same things I did when I was their age, but I was trying so desperately to hold on to what I wanted them to be that I got terribly close to losing them both. I don’t know why I felt like it was my job to run every aspect of their lives, when I was doing a poor job of running my own.
All of this eventually led to a kind of mental bottoming out. With no place else to turn I reached out for the help of some people I didn’t know but who seemed to know me and I also leaned on people in our Entry Point faith community. These connections led me to a relationship with the father figure that I had never really known.
I’m no biblical expert by any means but I did have a fair amount of exposure to the bible when I was a little kid and many of the stories that were read to me, are stuck in my brain. To me, the message of the prodigal son doesn’t really have much to do with the son at all. Jesus’ story was really about a father who loved his son unconditionally, just like his own God loved him.
Many of you know that for a good part of my life, I wanted nothing to do with God and I was pretty well convinced that the feeling was mutual. The miracle of my life is that I know today that my God, during all those years that I spent in resistance and denial, never stopped waiting for my return. And when I came limping home, my God didn’t turn me away or punish me or try to make sure I understood the errors of my ways…My God came running to kiss me. In time, I began to trust that my boys would be OK. I had to learn to trust that they each had a Higher Power in their lives too, and it was not me. They certainly deserved God’s grace more than I did. So, I gave them to God…and from that day until this one, that’s where I’ve tried to stay.
I began to change my behavior. Rather than telling them how they should run their lives, I started trying try to live my own life in a way that they might want to someday emulate.
Like Charles Kettering the great American inventor said, “Every father should remember that one day his sons will follow his example, not his advice.”
Once I began to trust God and my boys to survive without my constant direction, I was also able to give up my expectations, and with that went the resentments. There can be nothing worse for a father’s well-being than to resent his own children. As the resentments ebbed, fear seemed to pass too and with that came the joy.
Father’s Day took on the same flavor it had for me back in the days when these now young men were still little boys, back when they were just like little wheels, going round and round. Today, being a father is mostly a celebration of gratitude.
You see I don’t have to worry about not getting to say, “You’re welcome” anymore. The truth is I’m too far busy saying, “Thank you”. Many men don’t get second chances. God and my sons gave that gift to me. Thank you, God…Thank you Nate…Thank you Ben.
Today, my role as dad is mostly that of a cheerleader. My sons make their own decisions and for the most part, they do pretty well on their own. Both are extraordinary young men. They are humble and kind and dependable, just like my dad and they share a lust for living and adventure, just like my stepdad. I don’t know where they learned to be like that…well, maybe I do.
Steve Martin said this about Fatherhood:
“A father carries pictures where his money used to be.”
I may not be a rich guy today when it comes to dollars and cents, but my purse is full when it comes to having the love of my children and the joy that comes from really loving them. Thanks for letting me share with you some of the pictures that I carry in my wallet.
And to all the dads today, I wish you peace and love and the big piece of chicken.
Amen.
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