No Matter How Tall You Grow, You Look Up to Your Father
Father’s Day is celebrated all around the world. Societies may have varying traditions and practices, but the both-ways flow of love and caring between parents and children is as close to a universal truth as there could be among the peoples of the world. June 20 is a day for appreciating fathers and their roles in our families, communities and societies. In the spirit of celebrating dads everywhere, here are a few quotes and thoughts about fathers.
“My father didn't tell me how to live. He lived and let me watch him do it.”
- Clarence Budington Kelland
This quote is from the child’s perspective, but it contains the fundamental responsibility of being a father: Your children will pay attention and learn from you, no matter what you do. It is both the reason to be a good person and the motivation to avoid unsavory behavior. Because a father wants his children to be happy, healthy, and successful, he must do his best to achieve those things for himself.
“What you teach your children, you also teach their children.”
- Unknown
This is a great and true reminder about how a culture lives through families. What a father teaches his child may be a lesson learned by an expanding number of his descendants over generations.
"To be the father of a nation is a great honor, but to be the father of a family is a greater joy."
- Nelson Mandela
People may have important positions and achieve great things, but, along with their relationship to God, there is no source of joy and love more profound to a man than being a father.
“It is not flesh and blood, but the heart which makes us fathers and sons.”
- Johann Friedrich von Schiller
The German playwright may have said this in 1800, but it has even more meaning today as families and fathers have become more open about adopting and caring for children whom they did not sire. The statement is also a great reminder that a father’s relationship with his children is not merely genetic but emotional and spiritual.
“Lately all my friends are worried they’re turning into their fathers. I’m worried I’m not.”
- Dan Zevin
Effective humor generally underlines the truth with an ironic twist. This quote is funny, sad and insightful all at the same time. What makes it particularly poignant, however, is the need for a person to understand his own relationship with his father. Particularly when we are young and not yet parents, we are torn between our desire to be an individual and belonging to families, societies and cultures. That changes radically – and every father knows this – the moment he sees his baby. A father is born at the same moment as his first child.
Written by Daniel Kany
