Many years ago, when our daughters were teenagers, Ralph, a new father a work, asked me for advice about how to be a better father. I promised to get back to him by the next day.
My first priority was to find MBO. Our many years parenting together had convinced me that if anyone could answer this question with alacrity, it would be her.
I located MBO at my younger daughter’s soccer game. She was standing in the oppressive heat beneath a swarm of gnats the size of golf balls. Waving my arms furiously (these killer bugs hate soccer fathers), I asked her what single action I could take to be a better father.
“Simple,” she replied as several screaming girls hurled themselves at our daughter on the soccer field. “Stop burping at the dinner table. It’s a disgusting habit and it sets a bad example for the girls.”
So, there you have it -- straight from an authority.
Somehow, while I had to admit she was right, I didn’t think I had yet plumbed the depths of this issue. Sympathizing with my obvious frustration, she referred me to something she had read by Daisaku Ikeda.
“All children are different; each possesses his or her wonderful unique quality. We must pour upon all children our great love and compassion so that each child can blossom, true to his or her unique quality.”
That evening, as I drank a non-carbonated beverage at the dinner table, I asked my daughters the same question. Their numerous answers can be summarized as follows: “Mom always gets us things we need. Dad should buy us anything else we want.” I wisely dropped the subject and hid my wallet.
Maybe, I thought, I should go to a more mature source of wisdom—my mother-in-law. If anyone would have an opinion about what a father’s role should be, especially mine, she would.
Her response was actually very helpful. She said parents should expose their children to a variety of life experiences, because this gives them more choices and opens up their future possibilities. By a variety of life experiences, I suspect she wasn’t including the fact that MBO and I ran away from home when we were just teenagers.
Having overdosed on family input, I decided it was time to get some Buddhist input. So, I called Carol, a member of our Buddhist community. She was involved in cooking eggs with her two small children. Our conversation was, of necessity, interrupted with shouts of warning, fear and panic punctuated with squeals of delight.
She said she thought a father, or in her case, her partner, Lynn, should feel the responsibility to protect her family. She also said she was recently encouraged to use her Buddhist practice to develop a calmer demeanor so she would rarely have to scold her children. When a parent scolds a child, it is very serious and should only be done when absolutely necessary and with utmost compassion.
While cleaning egg yolk from the floor, Carol added that she had learned that if her attitude and actions were correct and strong enough to make her partner happy, her entire family would be happy. She then quoted a song I have never heard on the radio, “When Mama Ain’t Happy, Ain’t Nobody Happy.”
Later that afternoon, I played tennis with my friend, Bob. You can’t top tennis in 90-percent Virginia humidity against a former college all-star for outdoor humiliation. In between beating me in straight sets, Bob said he thought the most difficult challenge for a father was allowing his children to be who they are as opposed to who he thought they should be. We agreed this was very difficult since we have such a strong personal stake in our children’s futures.
I finished my two-hour imitation of wild gnat beating, and Bob helped me limp off the court. After a brief lay-over at his house for Band-Aids, I returned home to spend some precious time with my daughters. Later I read the following words in the Living Buddhism magazine: “What children expect of their father is neither the personification of profound knowledge nor someone with high social status, great fame, a prestigious job or top-flight education. They want a father with a good attitude toward life.” That really made sense to me and, hopefully, Ralph, too!
In a letter to one of his disciples, Nichiren stated: “With regard to the debt owed to one’s father and mother, the two fluids, red and white, of the father and mother come together to become your body. You dwell within your mother’s womb for 270 days, a period of nine months during which your mother on thirty-seven occasions undergoes suffering that is close to death. And the pains she endures at the time of birth are almost too great to imagine, the panting breath, the sweaty steam rising from her forehead. For a period of three years, you romp about the knees of your father and mother. So, when you come of age, you must first of all think of paying the debt you owe to your father and mother. Mount Sumeru is paltry in comparison to the towering debt you owe your father; the great ocean is shallow compared to the profoundness of the debt you owe your mother.”
My own father pretty much broke every good parenting rule. It took a lot of years of chanting and therapy for me to replace my buried anger with forgiveness and appreciation. A difficult but critical attitude shift if I was to become truly happy.
In order for us to maintain and deepen our humanity, it is essential that parental partners work together in a spirit of reciprocity and mutual support. The relationship between them must be one of creative coexistence, based on the recognition all things are interrelated. This is why treating others, especially our families, with respect, compassion and dignity is so important.
I’ve realized that every child wants a million dollars of effective parenting from their mother and father. Unfortunately, not too many parents have that much to give. Mine could barely manage a few thousand! MBO and I have always made it a priority to regularly communicate with each other about our children so that we are almost always on the same page. As a result, now into their forties, we have a wonderful and honest relationship with them.
I’ve also observed that when you stop complaining and when you stop making excuses, that’s when you become an adult. This translates to fatherhood. A successful father never gives excuses or complains about his kids or their mother. Instead, he always takes equal responsibility for his children.
As a Nichiren Buddhist, I learned I didn’t come from my father. I came through him. So, I got to choose the traits I wanted to emulate and those I knew I wanted to discard. This is all about taking responsibility for my own behavior. As soon as we stop blaming our own father and take responsibility for our lives and behavior, we can change. Children do much better when they have fathers who are committed to self-growth both emotionally and spiritually.
James Luther Adams was one of UU’s most influential scholars and ministers. He believed faith is not fundamentally about one's beliefs but about one's commitments. Find out what someone values the most and you will have found the object of his or her faith whether she considers herself religious or not. Is it success? Is it the adrenaline rush of crisis? Is it comfort? Is it religion? Is it helping others?
Adams loved to say, "An unexamined faith is not worth having, for it can be true only by accident." Authentic faith is an examined, self-critical faith. I believe this should be true regardless of our spiritual practice. Also, no matter what parental mistakes we may have made, Buddhism implores us not to be obsessed with our failings in the past. Rather it urges us to forge ahead with a from-this-moment-on spirit. In this way, we can make a fresh start every day.
When I turned fifty, my wonderful older daughter, a writing professor, wrote a fifty-word poem that I keep framed on my desk:
We scamper across mown grass. Launched, the ball curves, dancing above our curls. Night arrives; he shows us how stars form perfect patterns And, more important, gently guides our palms, His warm hand reaching toward the starry sky. Back in the kitchen, pancakes fly – we laugh again. Then, pouting, turn to homework and learn to write, to present, to care, to achieve. Lessons – easy, hard, observed, shown – and faith – In practice, spirit, love and life – taught. Adults now: we recall each squeeze, hug and talk. Between us. Between them. They comfort. Exposed to all conditions, we accept change. He shares his sorrows and triumphs Validating ours, freeing us to live. At fifty, he represents everything we want to be, Everything we hope to find. He is home for us and for strangers. The older we get, the more we need him. Lucky us. He is our dad. Lucky Earth.
On Father's Day in 1999, I wrote a letter to myself that expresses the guidance and love I wish I had received from my father. (He had passed away a few years before.) The act of writing the letter was a very healing process.
Ikeda had this to say about raising children: “Some parents may wish to guarantee their children’s happiness by giving them material wealth. Yet, no matter how wealthy they are, without good health and physical strength, children will not be able to lead truly happy lives. And above all, I believe that it is the “treasures of the heart”—inner qualities such as spiritual strength, character and humanity—that will ensure the true happiness of a child.”
“If parents can raise their children in a way that discourages self-absorption and fosters open-mindedness, such openness of spirit will naturally develop into a warm-heartedness directed toward others, toward nature and toward the universe. And with such young people in it, I am confident that the world will become a better place.”