From The Editor
Home Education Magazine, October 1985
Every day now I spend many hours driving to work. This leaves me with as many hours to reflect, to think, to feel. The subject so often on my thoughts and in my heart is exactly that which I have so recently left behind — my family. Many times I have the very real feeling I have forsaken my family for financial gain.
Now, the real world says we must …. and have made commitments …. but … ! I often drive along with the flowing traffic wishing I was at home with my little, and not so little ones. Am I merely wishing my life away for something that not right now? … but then it will never be again either.
Remember, father, the smell and feel of a warm stove on a frosty morning when your children are coming to life one by one? Remember the feelings that you share as each one crawls into your lap in turn and shares their schemes and dreams for their day as they prepare for the most important and serious job of learning about their world (and your world, also). And a serious wondrous business it is. (if one happens to be fortunate enough to realize this, if one is fortunate enough to make the commitment to share this growing with your children, then it can also be a serious wondrous business for you.)
I have been in three worlds of thinking, or possibly awareness, about a father’s relationship with his children – about my relationship with my children. I have been a witness as we Helen raised our children; I have shared the day to day, 24 hour commitment to our children; and now again I am out of the house during most of our childrens’ waking hours. They grow so fast, so very quickly they are no longer babies but growing children. What did I miss all those years when I was feeling fatherly duty calling me away from my family into the company of strangers to build whatever it was that duty dictated. How many mornings by the stove — that will never be again — have I missed? How much of my childrens’ life and dreams has been poured out to be unknown by me, unshared with their father?
Maybe I would not be feeling the loss as so real if I had not had the opportunity to share those dreams of every day life with my children. A relationship of weekends and hours after life at work is, as it seems, the sentence for the tremendous majority of fathers across this nation. Even if this time “off” is spent in a meaningful manner, so much is missed of real life — the happiness, sorrow, frustrations, triumphs, understandings, misunderstandings, and on and on. Yes, I was there with the freedom to share it all with my children. And now I am going back as soon as I can.
Illustration ©1985 Billy L. Fikes, all rights reserved.
