Just being there is the best thing a father can do

Having been a father for 19 years, I should have amassed a bounty of wisdom by now about the most important role I have ever undertaken in my life.

With all my experience, I should be able to spout enough sage advice to fill a book on the subject of fatherhood, and maybe provide new fathers with at least a few clear guidelines about what they should expect from now on and how best to guide their children toward a rich and satisfying life.

The truth is, I have very little wisdom to share about being a father. If I were to sit with an expectant dad, the most I could offer him would be this: “Be there for your children at all times. Be a constant presence in their lives – the most loving, patient, understanding, reassuring and honest presence you can be – and then hope for the best.”

Pretty sketchy advice, I know. Barely enough to fill a Father’s Day card, let alone a how-to book. But it’s the only good lesson I have ever learned about being a father, the only lesson I have been willing to trust with all my heart.

Like all new fathers, I was thoroughly perplexed the first time I held my infant son. All I knew was that my life had changed forever in ways that I could not begin to understand at that moment. Now, as that son prepares to leave home, with my daughter not far behind him, I am still confused at times about the significance of my role in their lives, and whether I did anything right all those years.

Growing up, I tended to learn most about parenting from some of the bad fathers I saw around me. In those men, my friends’ fathers, I realized what a good father was not. He was not aloof, sullen, threatening or intimidating. A good father did not beat his children, or shame them, or dismantle their dreams for the future out of bitterness over the failures of his past. So while I knew as a child what bad fathers could be like, and pitied my friends who were born to such men, I couldn’t appreciate the full measure of a truly good one until years later.

My father was no more a sage about child-rearing than I am. He didn’t fit the profile of the wise patriarch in movies, the Good Father with a ready answer to all of life’s hard questions and a balm for his child’s every fear. He didn’t sit me down when I was young and utter brilliant, memorable lines that I could one day use when I had children of my own. Looking back, I’m sure he stumbled his way through fatherhood, day in and day out, just as I have stumbled through my last 19 years in that baffling role.

It was not until he died, nearly 14 years ago, that I finally recognized the valuable lessons of fatherhood that he had been teaching me, by example, during every moment we had together. In his gentle and unassuming way, he had managed to establish himself so solidly in the lives of his children that his death left me curiously disjointed for a while. It was as if I had been set adrift from a mooring that I barely knew existed until it was gone.

He left a void in me that I’ve struggled for years to fill with his legacy as a good parent. As far as I’m concerned, the simple, unspoken advice he left behind will always beat out the mountain of self-help books that purport to break down the concept of modern fatherhood into convenient, easy-to-follow guidelines that guarantee successful child-rearing or your money back.

As I was fortunate enough to learn from one of the best, a good father doesn’t merely assert himself into his children’s lives on occasion, dispensing choice nuggets of wisdom before removing himself again from the picture. He is there for his children at all times. He is an enduring presence in their lives – as loving, patient, understanding, reassuring, and honest as he can be.

After that, all a good father can do is cross his fingers as his kids walk out into the world and hope that he got at least part of it right.

Tom Weber’s column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.