(Get it? ~~~ From Yentl...)
The Art of Manliness suggests that the fourteenth installment to their "30 Days to a Better Man" series should be a letter to our fathers. Be it a grateful, appreciative letter about how much they helped us through the rough periods; or a pissy letter, acknowledging how they instigated the rough periods – all of us have something to say.
This particular task is perhaps the most challenging one for me. (Maybe even more so than the testicular self-exam. I know...!) I will give it some thought, and pass their excerpt on to you. (The title should be a clickable link to their page.)
The Old Man. Pops. Dad. Daddy. Father. Papa. By whichever named we call him, no matter whether he was a good dad or a horrible one, no man looms larger in a man’s life than his father. For better or worse, his influence is inescapable. He is our model for manhood. Thus few things elicit stronger feelings in a man than his father. It’s the reason why Cormac McCarthy’s The Road resonates so deeply with us and the reason we get teary eyed when we watch movies like Big Fish.
Every boy wants a perfect father. He wants the man who acts as protector when things go bump in the night, who teaches him out to break in a baseball glove and how to shave, who gives him advice on women, and who becomes a friend and confidant later in life.
Of course, every dad is human and lives up to our dreams of perfection to varying degrees. He may fall so short of the father we hoped for that we ache in disappointment for what might have been. Or he may be so close to the ideal that we still fear that we may never live up to the example he set. Either way, our relationship with our father shaped us as no other, and our feelings about that relationship run deep, whether we can even acknowledge them or not.
Can anyone else hear "Papa Don't Preach" playing on repeat?
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