Father's Day

NOTE: I started writing this just before Father's Day, but wasn't able to finish.

I'm pretty certain that no one, or next to no one is reading what I write here. Well, except for the government spooks who are watching everyone. I want to write about Father's Day. In particular the Father's Day I'm going to have. This will be my 13th Father's Day and because I only have one child, everyone makes a big deal about it. That is to say, my wife, my son and brother-in-law. I appreciate the honor and for a long time I never really gave it a second thought. I've not been a very religious person, even through I was raised to be one by people who were by contemporary standards, pretty devout. So, I've struggled with the notion of God, and his intervention into my life on some kind of regular basis.

What I have learned about being a father.

My wife and I decided a bit later in life to start a family. I was opposed to having children, for a raft of good reasons. Some might argue that my reasons may be a bit grandiose, but even now, I cannot criticize the past me for not wanting to have a child. The human race faces some pretty grave existential challenges. The idea of bringing another soul into this enterprise is a daunting one and I would never criticize someone for not wanting to have children. In fact, I'm more prone to criticize people who have too many, for obvious reasons. Fatherhood has brought challenges that I was hoping I would not have to face. One in particular is the fact that my son is on the autism spectrum. He appears to have a couple of other learning differences. Fortunately, these are not so severe that he cannot function. In fact, he functions quite well and if you were to meet him, casually, briefly, you might not even detect that he had these differences. But, he does. As a parent, a father, it's painful to watch him as his schoolmates and "friends" change and grow by what appears to be leaps and bounds and while my son is progressing, his changes seem much more incremental, sometimes it seems like to me a glacial pace. I am hopeful that he will bloom in his own time, much as I bloomed later than many of my contemporaries.

The fact is,I've spent most of my own life feeling like I was always behind or falling behind most of my contemporaries, my family, my friends, etc. It's not a good feeling when you think about it, when you view life as some sort of game with winners and losers, but contrary to what a great many people think, life really isn't a game of winners and losers. The people who view it this way put themselves in a very bad place. It's a place that I have been, now and again, when I forget that we're not playing a game and that if life is a game, it's a game for keeps. Because the world and a great many people in it, tend to view life as this contest of winners and losers, I not only fear for myself, but for my son, who will view the world differently than many people and may not see it's expectations and challenges the way others see it.

Of course I would want for him, many of the conventional "wants", a good paying job/career, a solid love relationship, good family ties, good friends, all the material success that would go with being smart and hardworking, but that may not be in the cards for my son and great many of his cohorts. He will likely be marginalized by the larger society. Even now, I see him sidelined by his "friends", neuro-typical kids who realize that he is different. As they now enter their teen years and all that entails, they are swiftly changing and adapting to the new paradigm, they head to that goal, maturity, as if powered by steam turbines. My son meanwhile, is moving along as if under sail, at 45 degrees towards the same goal. He will hopefully get there, but not on the same timetable. This is a bit problematic for a young person, left behind by "friends" and schoolmates, with no one his own age to associate with because he is different, views the world through a different lens, isn't "cool" enough, or isn't into the latest thing that a boy his age "ought" to be into.

In some ways, it is an advantage, because I was a later bloomer and I simply wasn't as mature, for better or worse, than many of my friends and associates at the time. This means he will likely avoid getting into trouble with things like experimenting with his sexuality before he is ready. He is cautious of the larger world, because he doesn't see it the same way and views things with great care and skepticism. He is getting used to being disappointed by faithless friends and therefore will hopefully avoid finding out that real friends are very few and far between much later in life. I am hoping that when the time comes to choose a mate, if that is in the cards for him, that he will be schooled by his experiences that he will choose someone wisely, for their inner strength and beauty which is eternal, rather than the exterior beauty which does not last. All of this has informed me of late, that I cannot hope for someone outside of his family to be his good friend and confident. It must be me. It can be his uncles, or his mom, but I must be his friend, to the extend that I can. I remember in my own family of origin, I think my father must have come to a crossroads with me, around 14 or 15 and took a more active role with me and we forged a bond which lasted till the day he departed this earth. I have thought a lot about those times and I also had two older brothers who did the same thing for me, friends when there were few or even none around. My son doesn't have siblings, so this is my calling. Being a father, his father, means I must rise to this occasion and do my level best to help him make it through these years, with a decent sense of himself, in spite of what the world intends to do to him.