{"id":722,"date":"2012-06-17T00:53:56","date_gmt":"2012-06-17T00:53:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.positivelyparenting.com\/?p=722"},"modified":"2015-12-04T12:49:12","modified_gmt":"2015-12-04T17:49:12","slug":"fathers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mlparentcoach.com\/new\/parenting\/fathers\/","title":{"rendered":"Fathers"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
You don\u2019t need research to tell you fathers are important.\u00a0 You could look at literature, poetry, music, and especially history to see how relevant, wonderful, and damaging fathers can be.<\/p>\n

No, you don\u2019t need to look at any of that.<\/p>\n

You only need to ask yourself this:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What role did my father play in my own life?<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Completely involved or totally absentee, workaholic or committed family man, estranged by divorce or in-love with your mother, stoic or emotional, distant or present, stable or flighty, safe or risky, healthy or unhealthy, died too young or living to a ripe old age, happy or unhappy.<\/p>\n

The list goes on and on.<\/p>\n

And because people are so damned complicated, he could have inhabited any (or most) of these attributes over his lifetime.<\/p>\n

I still look for my father\u2019s approval.\u00a0 I still want to know what he thinks of me; the work I do, the way I parent my kids, and how I live my life.\u00a0 His opinion is of utmost importance to me, and I seek his counsel often.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I am watching my husband, whom I only know as a man I married, become a father to his three girls.\u00a0 He is a soft touch, and while I have practically never seen him cry, his eyes water often at the simplest things with his girls.\u00a0 When they toddle to him on a beach; when they caress his face.\u00a0 When they say, \u201cI love you, Daddy.\u201d\u00a0 His eyes well up and I see him, completely vulnerable.\u00a0 Sure, he loves me.\u00a0 But he loves<\/em> them.\u00a0 And it is the way it should be.<\/p>\n

I can ride him hard for his tendency to be soft with the girls\u2026more rules, be tougher, keep your boundaries<\/em>, but I really don\u2019t want him to change.\u00a0 He is the smooth to my rough, the hug to my grab, the smile to my grimace, the yes to my no.\u00a0 The truth is, I need him, and the real truth is<\/em>, I think I may need him more than he needs me.<\/p>\n

He would probably say the same about me (which is sweet), but we all know whom the kids would pick in the divorce.<\/p>\n

So, to my dearest Mark, thank you for being the father I knew you would be to these wonderful girls.<\/p>\n

I love you.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You don\u2019t need research to tell you fathers are important.\u00a0 You could look at literature, poetry, music, and especially history to see how relevant, wonderful, and damaging fathers can be. No, you don\u2019t need to look at any of that. You only need to ask yourself this:   What role did my father play in my own life?   Completely […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-parenting"],"yoast_head":"\nFathers - Meghan Leahy Parent Coach<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/mlparentcoach.com\/new\/parenting\/fathers\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Fathers - Meghan Leahy Parent Coach\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"You don\u2019t need research to tell you fathers are important.\u00a0 You could look at literature, poetry, music, and especially history to see how relevant, wonderful, and damaging fathers can be. 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