He May Be Someone Else to You, But To Me, He’s Just My Dad

With Father’s Day just around the corner, we are all hopefully thinking about our dads. Dads have it tough, you know, compared to moms. We don’t have a clue about parenting, or so we are told regularly by our wives. And we don’t have that bond with our kids the way that mom’s do (“YOU didn’t give birth to these kids”). But we do have a special part in the family dynamics but that obviously varies family by family.

Dads come in all models with a variety of features. There are dads who are “checked out” or work all of the time and don’t spend much time with their kids. There are stay-at-home dads who watch the fort and the captives therein while the mom is out bringing home the bacon. There are hyper-engaged dads who do everything, work and take care of the kids, and make the rest of us look bad. There are jock dads who do a lot of sports with and without their kids. And, of course, there are HighTechDads where technology is considered to be “the other woman” (or at least that is what my wife says). Remember, technology is not a substitute for parenting. It is merely a tool that can occasionally make things easier or provide other experiences.

My dad is an “education dad.” He’s a professor of European History with a specialty in German History at Stanford University. He has taught all around the world including Northwestern, Princeton, and Oxford. He was the president of the American Historical Association and is a recipient of the Pour Le  Merite order, which is a civil version of an order bestowed to the arts and sciences by the German government (there are only 20 German and 20 foreign recipients of this order at any given time and only when a recipient passes away does the order get given to someone else). He even has a Wikipedia entry which I think could use a bit more content.

Guess what my worst subject in high school and college was? Yep, History. I must have felt that there was no way to be a great as my dad from a historical perspective, so subliminally I must have thought to just not worry about history. So I went in the opposite direction, that of technology, something that (luckily, I guess) I can run circles around my dad.

My dad always has been and always will be a workaholic. I remember much of my childhood having him burning the midnight oil in his study, reading books, writing or doing research. When he was chairman of the History Department at Stanford, I remember helping him as a wine server at the annual History Department Party at our house. Unlike many other kids who got to go to summer camp or hang out with friends, I was always lugged off to Europe (in hindsight, it was a really wonderful experience and I was lucky to be able to go, but back when you are a kid in junior high or high school, you want to go to Hawaii or camping or something). The great thing about traveling in Europe with my dad is that he is a walking historical encyclopedia. There was never a question about a building or a piece of artwork or a statue that he couldn’t talk about or answer.

But he always had time for me, especially when it came to my schoolwork. In fact, I own my passion for writing to him entirely. He taught me how to craft a paper and how to engage someone with the title of the piece (something that now is incredibly important when it comes to blogging). He’s also a diplomat in many sense of the term, having chaired and managed departments, committees and task forces. I learned from him that if you want someone to buy into your own idea, you have to make them think that it is actually THEIR idea, for example. I owe a lot to him.

Recently he addressed the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States European Command in Stuttgart, Germany. Below is an interview he gave, and what is amazing to me was that he was able to pack a 90 minute lecture into just 8 minutes or so:

[iframe_loader width=”560″ height=”349″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/GH5KLqn55I0?rel=0″ frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen]

His most recent book, “Where Have All the Soldiers Gone – The Transformation of Modern Europe” has received critical acclaim throughout the world. (It’s available on Amazon currently.) And his book was part of the first-ever U.S. European Command Reading List, specifically Admiral James Stavridis’ recommendation.

So, in my opinion, my dad as a public figure, is that of an educator and mentor to many. He is incredibly humble and never talks about his numerous accomplishments, in fact, my stepmom is the one who toots his horn for him (e.g., “Did you know that your dad met with the President of Germany the other day, and tomorrow he’s off to Israel to lead a think tank discussion. And next month, he’s leading a task force on reworking Stanford’s undergraduate education reform” – all things he as truly done, but not necessarily in this order).

But to me, he’s just my dad – the guy who I watched every episode of “Police Squad” with and who I had to give a pillow to for him to laugh into so that I could hear the show. He’s the guy who, in a cross-country road trip with him during my high school days, I went with to see “Revenge of the Nerds” with and who ordered the tickets at the window by embarrassingly saying “Two nerds please.” He’s the guy who introduced me to fly fishing and took me on summer fishing trips. He’s the guy who braved a cold, stormy Illinois winter to take me for a sled ride (see picture at the top of this article). And I remember the ONE time that he spanked me, after I had run across the street without looking. And now, he’s the guy who affectionately wears the “grandpa” badge and who spoils my kids with donuts for breakfast whenever they have a sleep over with them.

Every father has his strengths and weaknesses. Lord knows, I’m really far from being a perfect dad – I have plenty of faults, neglect my kids selfishly at times, like feeding them junk food to spoil them, you know the drill. But they are part of what defines me as a person. They are my life, my wife’s and my legacy, each of us molding them in certain ways, injecting wisdom and learning, helping them pursue their dreams, and making them laugh in the process.

So I ask you the same question that I ask myself, how do you want to be remembered as a dad? What do you think makes you a strong father? How are you enriching the lives of your kids?

Leave a comment and let me know what your dad means to you and how and what you are doing as a father to make your children’s lives fuller and richer.

Oh, and to all the current and future dads out there: Happy Father’s Day!

HTD says: Being a father is a huge responsibility and every second of your existence further defines what you do in the upbringing of your children.

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