1. Honor – Honor your dad.
If you have a dad, arrange a time to get together. If you can’t be together on Father’s Day, create your Father’s Day. If neither is possible, find a way to honor your dad: call; send a card, gift, or contribution in his name.
2. Support – If you don’t have a dad, reach out to a child who doesn’t have a dad.
If you don’t have a dad, locate an organization where your skills can be matched with a child’s needs. Perhaps you might enjoy tutoring, reading, throwing a ball, or playing board games. Donate to an organization that benefits children.
3. Succeed – If you’re a dad or granddad, be the best you can be.
If you’re a dad or granddad, you know the challenges and rewards. Like any endeavor, guidance helps. What parenting did you get that you want to emulate or tweak?
Bruce Feiler, New York Times columnist about family life and author of 6 consecutive New York Times best sellers, has written a book, “The Secrets of Happy Families,” that explores ways to attain sought after family goals.
John D. Spooner, accomplished investment advisor and writer, wrote, “No One Ever Told Us That” for his grandchildren and yours. If your kids are high school graduate age or older, they’ll benefit from Spooner’s valuable life lessons.
Dave Barry, noted humorist and New York Times best-selling author, wrote “Babies and Other Hazards of Sex: How to Make a Tiny Person in Only 9 Months with Tools You Probably Have Around the Home.” Dads and Granddads know you can’t be in the business of parenting without a sense of humor.
Discover advice that resonates for you. It’s not necessary to reinvent the wheel.
My dad liked:
“If” – Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build’em up with worn-out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
Happy Father’s Day!
Life is short. Celebrate!