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Father's Day, My Favorite Day
| Article
# : |
11025 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
Date : |
6 / 1986 |
1,739 Words |
| Author
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Ralph Schoenstein
Ralph Schoenstein is the author of fifteen books, including
Every Day Is Sunday, recently published by Little and Brown.
As a television essayist, he has done humorous commentary for
the ABC Evening News and The Today Show. Mr. Schoenstein, a
resident of Princeton, New Jersey, has done extensive magazine
writing for national publications. |
Father's Day has a special meaning for me, because I celebrate it all year long. To me, my endless Father's Day is the greatest joy a man can know. If you have a few minutes, I'll tell you why I feel this way. At least you won't have to look at pictures.
When I was a boy, I always knew the ages of the sisters and brothers of my friends--they were either four years older or four years younger than one another because in those days parents seemed to have children with the spontaneity of presidential election. And my wife Judy and I were also traditional breeders when we began. In fact, not only did we follow the rhythm of presidential elections, but we also followed their precise year: our daughter Beth was born at the start of the 1964 campaign and our daughter Sue was born during the primaries of 1968. When we skipped the elections of '72 and '76, we presumed that we would be having no more candidates. I liked the sound of "a family of four." There was a nice solid ring to "a wife and two children," as if I were being true to the tables of Mutual of Omaha.
During the sixties and seventies, Judy and I reared our two girls as if parenting were both the world's noblest profession and its happiest pastime. Because the girls were born four years apart, they were able to be friends when they weren't fighting; and, because I was mentally twelve myself, I was able to lose myself in the wondrous pleasure of playing with them. Life was a cabaret in which the girls and I romped and laughed and swigged our Ovaltine in the company of Jiminy Cricket, Big Bird, the Tooth Fairy, and Captain Kangaroo.
A few years, later, when the girls were eleven and fifteen, Judy wistfully said to me one day, "Gee, honey, do you realize that soon we can start doing things just by ourselves?"
"You want a life of your own?" I replied. "That's pretty self-indulgent, I'd say."
I was coming down with the first known case of premature empty-nest syndrome. I was imaging the sadness I would feel when the girls were grown up, which was something I had forbidden them to do.
Early on evening in the fall of 1981, Judy dropped into my lap and said, "I have something I think you should know. I'm pregnant."
"Marvelous!" I cried, embarcing her.
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