On June 19, let’s acknowledge all kinds of fathers

In 1924, an illustrated advertisement for Father’s Day in The New York Times read: “Dad’s usually so busy providing luxuries for his family that he hasn’t had time to look after his own necessities. And he does need ties – every man does. Surprise him on Sunday morning with a couple of good-looking neckties.” 

Father’s Day seems to have been around forever, but it wasn’t until 1966 that President Lyndon B. Johnson issued the first presidential proclamation honoring fathers and designating the third Sunday in June as Father’s Day. Six years later, in 1972, the day was made a permanent national holiday when President Richard Nixon signed it into law.

Now, the third Sunday in June is when we express our gratitude for our dads, but also other men in our lives – stepfathers, adoptive and foster dads, grandfathers, even the uncles, brothers and male mentors who have played a role in our lives.

Father’s Day is  particularly poignant to those of us in the adoption community, as we take time to affirm that it is not biology that makes a parent, but love and attention.

We are all shaped to some extent by the presence or absence of our fathers, by how they choose to act, by their competence and their incompetence.

In 1976, my own father, James Boyle, wrote a letter to me on the occasion of my high school graduation. What I cherish about this now tattered piece of paper is the way my father acknowledged his shortcomings as a parent. He wrote, “I know that you will lead a good and decent life, but sometimes I feel that I have failed to set the examples for you that I have wanted to, but that was because of my personal weaknesses and not because I didn’t love you.”

Sadly, I know that he continued to worry about the places where he fell short as a parent until his death in 2009.

On this Father’s Day, I offer my father the wisdom of the consummate dad, Fred Rogers, who observed: “Some days, doing the best we can may still fall short of what we would like to be able to do, but life isn’t perfect – on any front – and doing what we can with what we have is the most we should expect of ourselves or anyone else.”

On this third Sunday of June, let’s acknowledge all kinds of fathers, regardless of their successes or shortcomings. 

PEG BOYLE, LICSW, is the Adoption Options coordinator at Jewish Family Service of Rhode Island.