Rethinking Father's Day

We don’t celebrate Father’s Day in India, so it has always felt strange to me. Why does my son need to give me a gift on a particular day to show me his love? I already know he loves me. Instead, perhaps I should use this day as a reminder of what kind of father I should strive to be.

Reflecting on the significance of this day, I am reminded of various portrayals of fatherhood in popular culture, particularly a memorable scene from the classic film Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner. This scene has significantly shaped my approach to parental love and responsibility.

In the film, Sidney Poitier’s character, John Prentice, a well-accomplished older black man, is about to marry a much younger white woman, played by Katharine Houghton. At one point, John is arguing with his father, who is trying to convince him that it is a bad idea (it was 1967!).

In a heated exchange, John’s father says —

You have to do what I tell you.

That is when John loses his cool and berates his father.

It’s a powerful exchange well worth watching.

John says to his father:

I owe you nothing!!

In other words, a parent owes their child unconditional love, not the other way around. This idea has always resonated deeply with me. I do not live up to it every day, but I aspire to. And Father’s Day is a reminder that I should try harder.

Another timeless poem, 'Father Forgets' by W. Livingston Larned, captures the essence of a father’s reflections, illustrating the tussle between his love and his responsibilities.

Here is the poem:

Father Forgets

By W. Livingston Larned

Listen, son: I am saying this as you lie asleep, one little paw crumpled under your cheek and the blond curls stickily wet on your damp forehead. I have stolen into your room alone. Just a few minutes ago, as I sat reading my paper in the library, a stifling wave of remorse swept over me. Guiltily I came to your bedside.

There are the things I was thinking, son: I had been cross to you. I scolded you as you were dressing for school because you gave your face merely a dab with a towel. I took you to task for not cleaning your shoes. I called out angrily when you threw some of your things on the floor.

At breakfast, I found fault, too. You spilled things. You gulped down your food. You put your elbows on the table. You spread butter too thick on your bread. And as you started off to play and I made for my train, you turned and waved a hand and called, “Goodbye, Daddy!” and I frowned, and said in reply, “Hold your shoulders back!”

Then it began all over again in the late afternoon. As I came up the road I spied you, down on your knees, playing marbles. There were holes in your stockings. I humiliated you before your boyfriends by marching you ahead of me to the house. Stockings were expensive—and if you had to buy them you would be more careful! Imagine that, son, from a father!

Do you remember, later, when I was reading in the library, how you came in timidly, with a sort of hurt look in your eyes? When I glanced up over my paper, impatient at the interruption, you hesitated at the door. “What is it you want?” I snapped.

You said nothing, but ran across in one tempestuous plunge, and threw your arms around my neck and kissed me, and your small arms tightened with an affection that God had set blooming in your heart and which even neglect could not wither. And then you were gone, pattering up the stairs.

Well, son, it was shortly afterward that my paper slipped from my hands and a terrible sickening fear came over me. What has habit been doing to me? The habit of finding fault, of reprimanding—this was my reward to you for being a boy. It was not that I did not love you; it was that I expected too much of youth. I was measuring you by the yardstick of my own years.

And there was so much that was good and fine and true in your character. The little heart of you was as big as the dawn itself over the wide hills. This was shown by your spontaneous impulse to rush in and kiss me good night. Nothing else matters tonight, son. I have come to your bedside in the darkness, and I have knelt there, ashamed!

It is a feeble atonement; I know you would not understand these things if I told them to you during your waking hours. But tomorrow I will be a real daddy! I will chum with you, and suffer when you suffer, and laugh when you laugh. I will bite my tongue when impatient words come. I will keep saying as if it were a ritual: “He is nothing but a boy—a little boy!”

I am afraid I have visualized you as a man. Yet as I see you now, son, crumpled and weary in your cot, I see that you are still a baby. Yesterday you were in your mother’s arms, your head on her shoulder. I have asked too much, too much.

Sometimes, the simplest truths bear the most weight: fatherhood is about continuous effort and unconditional love.

The duties and delights of fatherhood cannot just be confined to a single day of celebration; instead, they must be woven into the fabric of daily life. That is why I aspire not to be a perfect father, but an unconditionally loving one, so that every day can be Father’s Day.

Happy Father’s Day.

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