Father’s day wisdom & wit

Given the important roles, fathers have played in the development and success of many a successful person, it’s hardly surprising that they often feel the need to honour them in poem, prose and performance.

The greatest literary minds, in particular, have put pen to paper to express their love and respect – some of which ends up even better than the verse you’ll find in the average Father’s Day card.

You can always rely on the great wit Mark Twain, to sum up the special father-child relationship:

When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.

Who doesn’t identify with that sentiment? Charles Wadsworth takes it a step further when he says:

By the time a man realises that maybe his father was right, he usually has a son who thinks he’s wrong.

Even Robbie Williams accepts the inevitable in the first verse of his hit Strong:

… And when I’m drunk I dance like my dad.

I’ve started to dress a bit like him …

So there’s a theme here – that eventually we all start to shed our youthful naivety and stubbornness in favour of the more laid-back, seasoned approach exemplified by our fathers.

Perhaps it is a wise father who lets his children learn from their own mistakes rather than try to impose an overbearing will on them. They’ll grow up with their own personalities and dreams, and they are the most important things we can attain.

The ancients must have known a thing or two about fatherhood or the human race would have been replaced by cockroaches by now. And sure enough, they have left us enough clues about their attitudes to fatherhood that has created great civilisations and dynasties. Let’s start with Confucius:

The father who does not teach his son his duties is equally as guilty as the son who neglects them.

The idea of the father as a guide and a moral guardian certainly spans continents and centuries. A character in Homer’s Odyssey says that it is “a wise child that knows his own father”, but perhaps Shakespeare’s modified version rings truer:

It is a wise father that knows his child.

After all, isn’t a sign of wisdom to understand your own limitations and how to rectify them? Sigmund Freud too, in trying to explain everything that makes us tick, struggled to get past the idea that the relationships with our fathers play a vital role in shaping our attitudes and life choices:

I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father’s protection.

Although his motivation was to further his scientific investigations into the human condition, perhaps he stumbled upon a universal truth that explains why you care for your father and why you’ll happily spend weeks looking for Father’s Day gifts that are really just a tiny annual repayment towards the massive investment he made in you.

Finally, just in case your father starts to get a little smug about the greatness attributed to his kind, how about reminding him of this bittersweet observation by the great humourist Helen Rowland:

A man’s desire for a son is usually nothing but the wish to duplicate himself in order that such a remarkable pattern may not be lost to the world.

Of course, you will probably agree, whilst simultaneously hoping that the duplication wasn’t too perfect – especially if you’re his daughter …

Courtesy of John Smith