Here’s a warning no child has ever heard from a father: “You just wait ’til your mother gets home!”
By Jim Blasingame
Parental love is a paradox, simultaneously delivering the expectation of safe harbor with the obligation and consequences of discipline. As the father of an adult daughter and son, plus the grandfather of four knucklehead boys (Hurricane, Tornado, Crash and Trainwreck), I’ve learned some things about this paradox.
All the hours logged as Dad and Poppy have often caused me to contemplate how different are the roles of mother and father, particularly and especially in the overt demonstration of parental love. And it’s fascinating how the manifestation of this love differs between mother and father – biologically, psychologically, emotionally and experientially.
Maternal love, at once gentle and fierce, is observed in almost all animals, not just humans. No doubt you’ve heard this simile: “… as sweet as a mother’s love.” And this warning: “Never get between a mama bear and her cub.” I’ve witnessed and have been the happy recipient of the “mama” side of the parental paradox, and there truly is no other force in nature like it.
However, a human father’s love is more often associated with the discipline half of the paradox by unfortunate references like “tough” and “strict.” Here’s a warning no child has ever heard from a father: “Well, you just wait ’til your mother gets home!” As a teenager, after years of receiving innumerable applications of his tough love, my dad once – and only once – apologized “if” his approach to delivering paternal love might seem “hard-boiled.” It did. But, recognizing that this extremely rare gesture was also rhetorical, I chose discretion as the better part of valor and my rights under Miranda to remain silent.
Clearly, mothers occupy the pinnacle of parental love – with complete justification. And not to take anything away from it, but a mother’s sweet love is as primal as the miracle of birth. Indeed, it’s their first nature. So, let’s be honest, they don’t have to work too hard to deliver it.
Alas, it’s troubling that there are no corresponding sweet references to paternal love. Could this be why Father’s Day isn’t quite as big a deal as Mother’s Day? I’m just sayin’ …
So, on this Father’s Day, let’s resolve that human paternal love deserves a better rap for at least three unique reasons:
- A human father’s tough love is more learned than primal and does not exist outside of homo sapiens.
- When a father’s toughness is delivered, especially when applied to an indignant recipient (read: teenager), it requires a love that is at once courageous and patient. Courageous enough to endure negative responses, and patient enough to defer gratification for having dispensed that lesson. Sometimes for years. Maybe decades.
- It isn’t fair that a grandfather can be adjudged “wa-ay cooler” than a father. (Until you are one.)
It must be said that no one is more keenly aware of the distinction between the application of the two kinds of parental love than a single parent (especially single moms). Particularly, when sweet and tough must be delivered by the same person, perhaps within minutes. God bless them every one.
My own Dad has been gone 22 years. But what I’ve discovered since is that he never really left me. He’s right beside me every time I pick up a tool, or figure something out (without YouTube or AI), or do a good deed, or take responsibility, or … you get the picture. BTW, his name was James and he helped save the world with General Patton during WWII. I never heard him make an excuse or call in sick. And he showed me how to be man and taught me the nobility of work even when such lessons were not cool.
Finally, mothers, please forgive any bias you may detect, but here’s my conclusion about the paradox of parental love: The only force in the universe that comes close to a mother’s sweet/fierce love is a father’s tough/courageous love. But the latter is the harder job, and the return on investment almost always takes longer.
Write this on a rock …
Happy Father’s Day, Dads. You’ve earned it.
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JIM BLASINGAME is a leading thought-leader on Main Street business and entrepreneurship. He’s an award-winning author, and was podcasting a decade before most people heard of it. jim@jbsba.com