It was supposed to be a loving, carefree Daddy-Daughter Date, with Elizabeth and
I sharing fun and games with a dozen other daddies and their daughters from our
church congregation. But somehow it turned into a somewhat awkward blind date.
And guess who was the one who couldn't see?
Our Daddy-Daughter Blind Date started out innocently -- and successfully --
enough with the Feet Picking Contest. All of the dads lined up behind a blanket
that was pinned so all you could see was our feet. We took off our shoes and
rolled up our trousers, and our daughters had to pick whose feet were whose.
Then we traded places with our daughters, and we had to pick which pair of
preadolescent feet belonged to our child. I could easily spot Elizabeth's feet
because she was the only one in purple toe nail polish. And Elizabeth picked
mine right away because ... well, there weren't a lot of dads in the group with
size 13 feet.
After our success with feet picking, Elizabeth and I were feeling pretty good
about the three-legged race. And we would have done well in that, I'm sure, had
I not stumbled and broken the string holding our legs together after two or
three strides. The big feet giveth, and the big feet taketh away. Still, we were
having a good time as we gathered for the final event before lunch.
A number of cartoon pictures of dads doing different things had been scattered
around the bowery in which we were meeting. The girls were instructed to look at
the pictures, and pick the one that best represents what their fathers love most
to do. I watched as Elizabeth moved carefully from picture to picture, picking
each one up, studying it, looking at it, and then putting it down again. Finally
she settled on one and came back to sit by me, smiling confidently. The girls
stood, one by one, and explained why they selected their picture. There were
pictures of dads playing golf or tennis, or boating, or working in the yard, or
playing with their children. Good stuff. Fun stuff. The girls said that these
are the things their dads love best. Then Elizabeth stood and held up her
picture. It showed a dad dressed in a suit and tie, carrying a briefcase and
smiling cheerily as he punches in at a time clock. "This is my dad," Elizabeth
said proudly. "He loves to go to work." At first I was pleased -- even flattered
-- by her choice. It is not a bad thing to be perceived as a hard worker and a
dedicated employee. In the business world, you win awards for things like that.
But somehow in this setting it was troubling. All of the other dads were good,
hard workers, too, I was sure. But why was it that their daughters understood
that there were other things in life that were more important to them than their
work -- and my daughter didn't?
"You DO work a lot," my wife, Anita, said when I asked her about it later.
"Well, yeah," I said. "But I don't do it because I love it. I do it because I
love my family, and this is the best way I know how to provide for them."
"I know that," she said. "But kids don't look at it that way. They think that
the best part of being an adult is being able to do whatever you want to do. And
so they figure that if you spend so much time working, it must be because you
want to."
Which is why I taped the cartoon picture of that smiling, working dad to the
filing cabinet right next to my computer. It's there to remind me how I'm
perceived by my children, and to motivate me to do something about changing that
perception.
Now if you'll excuse me, Elizabeth and I need to practice for next year's
three-legged race.
Joseph Walker valuescom@juno.com
Joseph Walker has been writing professionally since 1980, when he left college
to join the staff of a daily metropolitan newspaper. For 10 years -- including
six as the paper's TV columnist and critic -- he was part of the mainstream
media, and was painfully aware of the overwhelming negativity of contemporary
journalism. Joe says, "Nobody was looking for real solutions to the problems
society was facing; they were just looking for someone or something to blame the
problems on." So in 1990 Joe began writing ValueSpeak, a weekly syndicated
column that attempts to look at contemporary issues from the perspective of
traditional values. Joe and his wife, Anita, are parents of five children, and
one grandchild.
You'll love his new book, "How Can you Mend a Broken Spleen!" Ordering is simple
and fast at the following Amazon address:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1573453005/qid=972961681/sr=1-6/straigh
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