Being a dad is the best thing that ever happened to me. I adopted my stepdaughters (now daughters) after they were adults. Their biological dad ended contact when his marriage to my wife (now ex-wife) ended, and I filled the position of role model in their lives.
Adopting them allowed me to be a grandpa and father-in-law. All of us work in the same family business. I can't imagine life without them.
Adopting adult children seems complicated, but it is an increasingly complex world. My odd relationship with my father may be more typical than untypical.
A line in Richard Wolffe's book, Renegade, quoted from Obama's Dreams of My Father hits me every Father's Day.
Obama said, "every man is trying to live up to his father's expectation or make up for his father's mistakes."
Obama went on to say, "I suppose that may explain my particular malady as well as anything else."
Obama didn't have many real interactions with his father to build from. As Wolffe noted, the book is about Obama's own quest, self reflection and ability for storytelling.
Skills that made Obama President of the United States.
When I read the Obama quote, it made me wonder what side of the equation I fell on. Was I living up to my father's expectations or making up for his mistakes?
In my case, it's a little of both.
Anyone who read my second book, Son of a Son of a Gambler, recognizes that I worshiped my father. He convinced me that I can do anything I set my mind to doing.
What doesn't come out in the book is that I actually had two fathers. A pre-Playboy bunny and a post-Playboy bunny dad.
That is where it gets complicated.
For the first nine years of my life, my father worked two jobs, seven days a week. He worked every holiday.
I saw him for the two hours that he was home for dinner and after church on Sundays. (He skipped church during football season to book bets, but otherwise was at mass every Sunday.)
He rose from extreme poverty to make some money. Bought us a big house in a nice neighborhood and then ran off to live with a Playboy bunny.
The Playboy bunny hated dad's children, and me in particular.
During my early teen years, dad was not really part of my life. I rarely had any private interactions. He didn't really know who I was or what I did.
When I was in high school, dad had a serious stroke. It should have killed him and he spent nearly a year in the hospital.
Through focus and hard work, he defied the original prognosis and came back to health. He also came back a changed man. He wasn't "born again" in the religious sense (he was still a professional gambler with hard-living friends) but everything else about him changed.
He stopped living with the Playboy bunny and married a wonderful, well-grounded woman. He became a great dad.
He was even a better role model. The way he overcame the stroke showed me that hard work and perseverance can overcome anything.
I wrote a book about the second dad. The Playboy bunny years didn't make it into the story. I don't want those years to reflect on the great dad that I wound up with. However, those years play into who I am.
You can only ignore your past at great peril to your future.
The Obama quote gave me a chance for reflection. It made me wonder where other men fall on the expectations versus mistakes equation.
If you look at our recent presidents, we have had the whole range of outcomes.
It's obvious that John Kennedy and George W. Bush were living up to their fathers' expectations, and George H.W. Bush probably was too. Nixon and Reagan were embarrassed by their fathers' mistakes.
Gerald Ford was adopted and Bill Clinton's father was killed before Clinton was born. It seems like Ford's adopted father was supportive and Clinton's wasn't.
Like Obama, Clinton developed role models outside the family unit.
We live in an America where the unwed birth rate is 40 percent and climbing. Most of my family came in the world that way. Some cite the statistic as a stigma, but I don't mean it that way. It reflects a lot of societal norms and changes and it is what it is. We do have to factor it into how our future generations will develop.
I can say, from firsthand experience, that having an absent father can hurt your development. I can also say, from firsthand experience, that having an encouraging and loving father can be the key to achieving greatness.
My dad wanted me to be elected President of the United States. Just like Barack Obama.
Obama's election showed that people with absent dads, or no dad at all, can grow up and live in the White House.
I'm not on a path towards political office, but somewhere in the back of my mind, Barack Obama knocked down one of my childhood barriers. If Obama can do it, every other child of an absent father can make it, too.
I've been hit and miss on President Obama's performance in the White House, but breaking the single parent barrier is a legacy that will live on well past his presidency.
Don McNay, CLU, ChFC, MSFS, CSSC is one of the world's leading authorities in helping injured people and lottery winners deal with complex financial issues. McNay is also an award winning syndicated financial columnist. McNay founded McNay Settlement Group, a structured settlement and financial consulting firm, in 1983. The company's primary office is in Richmond, Kentucky. McNay has Master's Degrees from Vanderbilt and the American College and is in the Eastern Kentucky University Hall of Distinguished Alumni. McNay has written two books. Most recent is Son of a Son of a Gambler: Winners, Losers and What to Do When You Win The Lottery. McNay is a Quarter Century member of the Million Dollar Round Table and has four professional designations in the financial services field.
You can write to Don at don@donmcnay.com or read his column at www.donmcnay.com. You can reach him on Facebook and on Twitter.
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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/don-mcnay/fathers-day-in-an-absent_b_879744.html
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