Sunday [June 21st] is Father's Day in America, a day set aside toappreciate dads for all they offer their families and society as awhole. Father's Day can also be a time to reflect on what fatherhoodactually means in today's culture. A random sampling of Americans sharewhat the word "father" means to them.
Itwas a bit hard to hear amid the shrieks and whoops of delight at a NewYork City playground recently, but Michael Richards, an olderstay-at-home dad whose wife works, seemed unfazed by the din as hebeamed a grin at his little boy and girl at play on the swings.
"WhenI was 35, and someone said, 'You are going to have three kids,' I wouldhave said, 'What? Are you nuts?'" he said. "Now, at 56, a billiondollars couldn't equal the feeling I have when I am with my children."
Richards said empathy is the single most important gift he offers his children as a father.
"I try to feel what they are feeling, and with that comes sympathy and a really nourishing type of love and understanding."
Ablock away, Wassim Malaeb, a Lebanese-American grocer, took a moment'sbreak from stacking cans to explain that in his more traditionalculture, a father's love is expressed mostly by providing for his kids.
"The love that comes from the mother is different from thefather. Fathers make sure our children have a better life than we doand that there is food on the table. This is the love that we give."
Malaeb said he loves being a father.
"I feel like I have given something to life," he said. He added that the more love he gives his children, the more he receives.
"WhenI come home, the minute I open the door, they run to me and say, 'Dadis home!' They are always asking me questions. And this is a wonderfulfeeling. That's why you are a dad."
Formerpresidential speechwriter Ted Sorensen agrees with that sentiment.Sorensen, who was often photographed with his three children at theKennedy White House, says every good dad must play many roles.
"One is to love his children regardless of whether they meet all of his idealized standards or occasionally fall short."
Sorensenalways endeavored to set an example for his children: "? an example ofkindness and patience and doing justice at home and contributingsomething to the world at large. It's important that he be a teacherfor his children. And that requires time."
Sorensen says that even during the busiest days of his career, he would set time aside to take his children on camping trips.
"?and invite them to come visit me in the White House, where they werefamous for playing hide-and-seek in some rather august chambers," herecalls with a chuckle.
Sorensen has continue to be close with his children into adulthood.
Incontrast, a office building security guard named Cliff has had a hardtime maintaining any relationship with his dad, who was available athome only occasionally while he was growing up.
"We don't really talk no more too much," he says with a sigh. "We just grew apart."
Cliff acknowledged that made him sad.
"HadI had a father all my life," he said, "I would have had somediscipline, [and be] able to speak up for myself. Some things a man hasto do instead of just a mother, in my view."
Manybelieve that there is no inherent difference between mothering andfathering. Others, like Samuel Montoute, believe that biology andgender play central roles in parenting styles. He said, for example,that a man's deeper voice and greater physical power make him a morenatural disciplinarian than a mother.
"You'll see children'playing it up' [misbehaving] with their moms, and with mom isscreaming at the top of their voice and the children are ignoring her,[but] the dad grunts and everybody sits up straight," he said.
When asked to describe his own father's voice, Montoute said his dad grew up illiterate in the Caribbean.
"Hisvoice was somebody who wanted to reach out... but he didn't know how.It could be quite a gentle voice at times. But it could be a veryaggressive voice."
Montoute's father grew up fatherless.
"? so he didn't know how to temper his voice? or his personality. He needed a father. As we all do," he added.
Sometimesa father is preoccupied with inner wounds that make him hard to reach,even if he is physically present. That was the case withpsychotherapist Jacob Gershoni's dad, who was born in Turkey in a mixedMuslim-Christian community and abandoned by his parents. He was raisedby a Jewish couple in Syria. That family later moved to BritishPalestine, now Israel.
Gershoni said that being adopted was astigma at the time, so his father kept his past secret from hischildren until they were adults.