I held out hope that he would attend my wedding. I even selected an outfit and shoes for him, but he did not attend. He had disappointed me most of my life because of his absence, but I hoped—and I prayed—that he would at least come to my wedding. It really hurt me when he didn’t attend and he never explained.
My dad’s absence left a big void in my life—a void I still feel. Even today, as a parent myself, I still wish he could have been there. He’s dead, so that’s not possible, but I realize I needed my father more than I ever thought I did.
I’m not alone. Thousands of other kids have missed out as I did by not having a father present. My mother was always there for those events and I’m grateful, but she couldn’t completely compensate for his absence.
As young people, we want our fathers to be present in our lives and to be involved in what we do. I make a special plea for fathers because so many of us men are absent. Our children need to see positive male role models early in life. Not being there is not something we can make up for later.
If you’re a parent, my message to you is this: Be there. Spend time with your children. Time is so important and you’ll have only a few years to make your imprint on them. If you are not there to teach them, someone else will. That someone else may lead your children in the wrong direction.
Besides being there for them and teaching them, as parents we need to listen to our children. I’m amazed at how few parents stop to listen when their children are asking for their attention.
In her autobiography, My Life So Far, Jane Fonda tells about a time her father was reading a book. She sat down beside him with her own book. For more than an hour, not a word passed between them. At one point, she began to laugh at something she had just read. He paid no attention to her. No matter what she did, she could get no response from her father.
Throughout her life story, Jane Fonda bemoans the fact that her father was rarely around. Even when he was physically present, he was emotionally absent. Her father, Henry Fonda, was considered one of the great stage and film stars of the last century. Maybe he was a great actor, but his children didn’t think he was a great father.
As I read the book, the point became even more powerful that parents need to listen to their children. We not only need to hear what they say to us, but need to listen to the way they talk to their siblings and their friends. We need to respond and let them know that we hear their concerns and appreciate them.
My advice: Allow your children to talk and express how they feel about events in their lives and the people with whom they’re in contact. Let them talk to you about their feelings toward others. As you listen, you can begin to understand the types of interactions they have with peers and adults. As soon as they are able to talk—even when their communication is limited to mostly gestures—you need to listen. If we don’t listen to our children when they’re young, they won’t listen to us when they’re older.
Even though you’re a parent, think of this from the perspective of your children. If they have to grab you and beg you to listen to them, what message are you giving them? Aren’t you saying they’re not important—that they don’t deserve your time and your interest?
The worst thing children can say about a parent is, “My mom (or dad) doesn’t care.” Those words may not always be verbalized, and they may not be true, but the thought comes from their perception based on their parent’s behavior. However, to listen—to truly listen—can make a vast difference. The attention you give your children tells them they are important to you. You show your love by your presence and attention. You do make a difference—a big difference—in the quality of your children’s lives.
By contrast, we read of terrible tragedies involving violence perpetrated by children. Two immediate examples are the Columbine High School shooting in Colorado, and one later in Red Wing, Minnesota. In the latter episode, a young man killed ten people. We learned later that in both situations, the shooters had talked to their friends about their problems and their plans to deal with them, but they had never discussed their pain with their parents. According to the news media, the parents were shocked; they didn’t have a clue about the angst and anger their sons felt.
I’m not trying to judge the parents and I don’t think they were terrible people. In fact, they were probably typical parents who worked hard and dealt with family issues every day—people like you and me. But if they had listened—and if thousands of other parents had listened—similar tragedies could have been prevented. We assume those tragedies happen only in the inner city, but Columbine wasn’t a poor community and it certainly wasn’t the inner city.
It’s easy to say that these problems are “out there” and forget that violent incidents can and do happen in middle-class and even upper-class neighborhoods. Regardless of their income or location, parents struggle everywhere.
Similar tragic events happen all over our nation and the issues affect everyone. Just by simply listening—daily—to our children, we can make a difference in their lives and in their futures.
One of the best things we can do as parents is to use our influence to help our children learn how to express anger without violence. Anger is not bad and children need to recognize that it’s a normal emotion. They also need to grasp that they don’t have to retaliate or act out of their anger. They learn it best if they observe their parents model healthy, nonviolent behavior—and thus guide and show them how to cope with anger and avoid violence. Our children need to see that they can talk it out, walk it out, or channel that anger in a positive direction. Children can use that emotion to drive them to work harder in school or at home, or simply to avoid similar stressful situations.
We could prevent many cases of spousal abuse if we helped young men early in life to learn that violence isn’t the answer when they’re angry. Aggressive behavior happens because it’s the only pattern they know: Anger for them means violence with their words, their fists, or sometimes with weapons. Why? The most obvious reason is because that’s the example they’ve witnessed in their own lives.
We can save more young lives if parents make it a point to provide an environment where our children can feel comfortable in talking to us.
Let’s look at this from another perspective. An abundance of research shows that young people in poor communities live in homes that have fewer than one book per home. By contrast, children in more affluent, middle-class and upper-class communities live in homes with a minimum of two hundred books.
I remember growing up and seeing my mother’s home filled with books. It seemed as if almost every weekend we were at garage sales to buy books or used furniture sales looking for more bookcases. Although my mother had never had access to any of that research about the number of books in a home, she knew the importance of reading. She recognized that the pursuit of knowledge and striving for excellence were the roads she wanted each of her children to travel.
Because she created a home filled with books—all books that she read—my mother not only had a powerful impact on me, but also made me realize the importance of reading and education. Having those encyclopedias and other books in our house spoke as much to me as her words.
I want to carry on my mother’s legacy. I read to both my five-and two-year-old daughters. They know some of the stories so well they finish the sentences for me.
My five-year-old knows the titles of all the books in her room and there are quite a few. She knows the characters very well. If I try to skip a paragraph, she says, “No, no, Daddy, you missed some.” I love that.
I want that kind of experience for every child in America. I want to see every student in our country reading at grade level or above. At least 90 percent of our prison population never read at grade level when in school. For children to learn to read well, we need to teach them early in life how to read and to comprehend