MOTHERS, DAUGHTERS & SONS - TAKE HEED
I’ll never forget the golden nugget Mark Twain once penned regarding fathers -
“When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.”
I’ve always liked that ageless adage by that cigar smoking Mississippi Steamboat Pilot because it captured the feelings of what a lot of kids thought, (despite the century or gender at hand) of their dad’s during their early years of self-inflicted revolution.
However, as the years pass, we all become more cognizant of just how much our father’s did know and just how prescient their earlier guidance truly was.
The countless roles of being a dad have spawned a number of quotable quotes and proverbs that merit sharing and reflecting upon. They’re all indisputably relevant to each of us in their own unique way.
Fatherhood is pretending the present you love most is soap-on-a-rope. – Bill Murray
A father is a banker provided by nature. – French proverb
It doesn’t matter who my father was: it matters who I remember he was. – Anne Sexton
It is much easier to become a father, than to be one. – Kent Nerburn
One father is more than a hundred Schoolmaster’s - 17th Century proverb
I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father’s protection. – Sigmund Freud
I don’t care how poor a man is; if he has family, he’s rich.”– M*A*S*H. Colonel Potter
My father didn’t tell me how to live, he lived, and let me watch him do it. – Clarence Kellar
Children learn to smile from their parents. – Shinchi Suzuki
Sometimes the poorest man leaves his children the richest inheritance. – Ruth Renkel
The best passage that I’ve come across concerning fatherhood is - in all probability - one of the wisest as well. If Mark Twain’s take on fatherhood was a golden 49er nugget, then Henry Ward Beecher, who was a well-known American clergyman who lived during Twain’s reign - wrote a gem.
The words of wisdom contained within Beecher’s single sentence are both concise and profound and yet simple and powerful. Its meaning will always transcend the test of time while providing a template for sons to emulate and daughters to anticipate. Its implication is tap-rooted, in part, from the experiences by those of us who were fortunate enough to have been front-row witnesses to; or better yet, are in the act of presently providing:
The best thing a father can do for his kids is to love their mother
(Dedicated to my Dad (1929 – 2017) who did all of the above, and then some. Written - 6/19/1997)