Channels

Illustration
Photo: Visual/Photos

An unfit father?

Maybe you want me to be more of a father and less of a friend? Chanoch Daum fears that he's just not good enough

1

My sweet Yehuda, I had the weirdest dream this week. We were walking barefoot in Zichron Yaakov. Suddenly you said that your battery was running low and you were exhausted. I asked you what you wanted me to do and you said the best thing would be for me to charge you, like one charges a cell phone.

 

You explained it with such simplicity as if it was clear from the onset what needed to be done. I, seeing your fatigue, checked with all the stores in Zichron near the Aaronson House, asking all the sales people and passersby if anyone had a charger I could use to restore my son.

 

I went from store to store and from house to house but no one had the right charger. You started dragging your feet and asked me to carry you because you had no strength to continue walking. I ran, frantically asking people if they knew of a place where I could charge my son. Then you placed your head on my shoulders and fell asleep. There I stood in the middle of Zichron Yaakov with you in my arms and your head on my shoulder and I started to cry.

 

2

When I woke up from the dream, dawn was breaking, I felt anguish and ran to your room to see if you were okay. I found you asleep in your bed, quiet as an angel, covered with a blanket. Next to your feet was the table soccer game I bought you a few weeks ago. You practice with it a lot, this chintzy stadium. But the last time you played against a friend you lost 2:16.

 

I almost cried when your friend ran around the house gleefully yelling the score. I had so hoped for you that despite your lack of athletic ability you could at least win at table football. When I was proven wrong, I felt unable to shield you from the pain in this world.

 

3

You make me feel things I didn’t know I was capable of feeling or exist in the world. But that dream in which you asked me to charge you up got me to thinking as if, despite my great love for you, there is something fundamental that I don’t give you.

 

As if you need something more from me that I have not yet given. As if you are asking me to empower you up with a different kind of strength, something you have not yet received from me. Is this a crazy fear that only exists in me or is the dream a real message, something in my subconscious, a feeling or deep knowledge that I can be a better father?

 

4

Maybe I am doing you more harm than good in my efforts to protect you from things that scare me instead of allowing you to choose what is scary and what isn’t. After all, you sort of know yourself and know your weaknesses. You don’t make a big deal of your smarts and don’t cry or complain that you have no athletic ability.

 

So why am I so concerned about your weaknesses in the field of sports when you are dealing with it in such a grown up way? Why did I buy you the table soccer game to compensate you for not excelling at the real thing, if it doesn’t bother you at all?

 

5

You don’t like to stand out and it’s not like you to show how smart you are in front of a lot of people. So why is it so important to me that people notice how you understand the material and how, despite your lack of athletic prowess, you excel in other areas?

 

Am I projecting my need to be acknowledged and to have my values acknowledged onto you? Am I passing on to you my fears that I may get totally lost in this thick forest we call life?

 

6

Maybe my dream is telling me that you want a parenting source that is more responsible? Maybe you want me to be more of a father and less of a friend? I mean, when you ask to stay home in the morning, I always agree. If you want to watch television until late, I feel bad for you and let it go.

 

My compassion has made me a pushover. Maybe that’s the reason you didn’t get tough and lack strength and independence because you are waiting for me to charge you with these qualities. But like in the dream, in real life I cannot find a charger for you. I can’t face you and force you to do something that goes against your nature.

 

And you are asking, in the dream, to create boundaries for you, not to capitulate. But I don’t have the strength to do it. So I am running from house to house looking for it or maybe looking inside my heart for this charger and don’t find it. Maybe that’s my problem dear son. Am I the father who knows how to hug and nothing else?

 

7

Isn’t it possible and impossible to do this right? It’s possible there is no such thing as a father who makes no mistakes? I see a therapist because I feel that I did not get enough praise growing up. A good friend of mine goes to therapy as a result of all the praise he received as a child he doesn't trust anyone.

 

Another friend seeks counseling because her father would compliment her constantly but her mother never had a nice thing to say. She’s confused and doesn’t know who is right. That is, what is the chance that you my sweet son won’t complain about me to a psychologist some day? What is the chance I’ll find the exact charger you need and be able to give you all the strength you require?

 

8

I loved you from the moment you were born. That is something that evolves all by itself. But the parental authority, where are people supposed to get that? How do all these fathers succeed in setting such great examples? Am I the only one who finds it so difficult? Is this authority something one gets automatically like the love one feels for a child or is it something one needs to develop or learn?

 

9

Why don’t I let myself disappoint you? Why can’t I say no to you? Why when you bring me your school notebook without mom seeing, I answer all your questions for you, in a child’s handwriting, and send you off to play table soccer? Why, when you tell me that you are too tired to pick up your games, instead of telling you that you have no choice, I pick them up for you.

 

Sometimes I may ask you for some help. I am trying with all my strength to be a good dad, but I sabotage my role as your father, and somewhere inside of me I know that the way I deal with being a parent is wrong.

 

10

Maybe I’m not meant to be a dad, as I am only fit to be a kind of big brother. Do I love you too much, my good son, with a kind of love that spoils you? Is there such a thing as loving too much?

 

Good God

I understand, young Mr. Daum, there’s a new television program with magician Uri Geller who is looking for an heir. I can tell you that the Prime Minister’s office is already in its second season: Ehud Olmert is looking for an heir - to Amir Peretz.

 


פרסום ראשון: 11.30.06, 02:34
 new comment
Warning:
This will delete your current comment