Chubs

Jack said yesterday morning that Junie was getting "quite plump."

"Babies are supposed to be chubby," I said. "It protects them."

"Oh," he said. "So like if stranger danger came, she could just plump him away."

"Something like that."

On fatherhood

Father’s Day weekend last year, President Obama continued a conversation he began on the campaign trail, about the importance of responsible fatherhood in our country.

“I say this as someone who grew up without a father in my life,” he told a group of community leaders and teenage boys at the White House. “That’s something that leaves a hole in a child’s heart that governments can’t fill.”

And in an essay released the week before, the President said more fathers need to “step up, to realize that their job does not end at conception; that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child but the courage to raise one.”

It’s a subject that rouses me because my husband, like Mr. Obama, was abandoned by his father at a young age.

It’s part of his life story, obviously, but it’s not a big part of his identity. I’m pretty sure I’m more angry about it than Erik is.

It’s a familiar story: After his dad left when he was five, Erik would get a phone call or a card from him on his birthday or at Christmas. Most of the time. But soon the calls came less frequently, and eventually his father just kind of faded away.

I cannot imagine what that must have been like.

But Erik was raised by a strong, capable, reliable mother and grandmother to become a strong, capable, reliable man.

And he is an amazing father. He transcended whatever legacy his own father left behind, and he made it look easy.


I’ve been surprised, at times, by how intuitive it has been for him. From the moment I first told him we were going to be parents, at a time in our lives that wasn’t ideal, his reaction was ecstatic. There was no fear, no hesitation.

Our sons adore their father, and he returns the affection. Sometimes after we tuck them into bed we share anecdotes about their day – funny things they said or did that amused us.

Often he’ll shake his head and say, “Gosh, I love those boys.” Almost like it amazes him, over and over again, how much love he can have for his children – and that his capacity for loving them is always swelling.

And when we’re at the places where other boys and young men hang out, he can spot the ones without male role models in their lives. They look aimless, like they’re searching for something.

Responsible fatherhood isn’t reliant on the father being in a committed relationship with the mother – that’s ideal, of course, but everyone knows it doesn’t always work out that way.

It’s about him being in a committed relationship with his children.


I know many divorced dads and single dads who are wonderful fathers. Period. But I think we as a country need to stop shaming single mothers while giving a free pass to fathers who, like the President said, have “abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men.”

In Erik’s father’s case, I will never understand it. I have known my husband since middle school and know that he has, constantly and without fail, been an excellent son and human being: Smart, driven, funny, honest, kind.

Reasonable.

Forgiving.

And I always think, it would have been so easy. He wouldn’t have asked for much from a father.

I don’t feel sorry for Erik, because he has never felt sorry for himself. He has gone on to success in school and in his career, and he is an involved and unabashedly loving father to his sons and his new daughter.

When our children grow to find success of their own, Erik can take pride in helping guide them.

That’s something Erik’s father has deprived himself of – along with the grandchildren he will never know.

So if I feel sorry for anyone, it’s him.