Posted by Maggie on June 19, 2022 in From the editors

This is one of my favorite photos of my life. It is our middle daughter’s autumn wedding day a few years ago. She and her new husband had just joined us at the reception, and when they came in she exclaimed how cold it was outside (they had been having outdoor photos taken while we waited inside). Her Dad reached out to feel her hand and held onto it to transfer his warmth to her cold hand.

I know that the impact my husband has had on our three daughters has been immeasurable. We had no sons, but that did not stop him from teaching our two oldest daughters the basics of driving, car mechanics and maintenance, as well as financial basics to live by so they would not have to struggle and settle-for like we have had to. It helped our daughters build important careers and beautiful families with their husbands as very involved fathers. And now with our Grandchildren he is teaching them driving, auto mechanics as well as conveying life’s lessons and tips to them, as well as his memories of his very influential Russian immigrant Grandfather (his memories of his own father are limited as his Dad was terminally ill and died when my husband was a little boy). He has been a most excellent and involved father with our youngest, special needs daughter.

My husband has always said, “We might not have money but we sure are rich with family.” And that is indeed what is most important.

In a culture/society where males, young and old, are being hammered down by ‘social justice’ and ‘gender bender’ attacks and dismissiveness recognizing the primary importance of fathers and fatherhood these days is required and celebrated.

Rep. Burgess Owens, Rep. Byron Donalds, Jack Brewer: America’s crisis is a lack of fathers: Father’s Day is this weekend but as we celebrate we must not forget the millions of children who are growing up without a dad in the home

We know that fatherhood is essential to the development of our children, and the increased involvement of fathers in the home leads to better results on a wide variety of outcomes. From economic prosperity, increased academic performance, to improved social mobility; fathers in their respective homes continue to be a key indicator of success for all children across racial, ethnic, and socio-economic groups…

A favorite movie quote of mine of course comes from a sci-fi movie, “Interstellar”. The main character, “Cooper”, is a former astronaut turned widowed father and a struggling farmer when the world fell into an unexplained agricultural apocalypse and Biblical famine. NASA reaches out to Cooper to take what will be a long several years journey, in Earth time, through a wormhole to search star systems for viable planets for possibly colonizing Earth’s population there to save the human race. His young daughter does not want her father to leave her because she is not convinced he will return. Nothing he can say will convince her otherwise, and he himself is not convinced he will return, at least in her lifetime. He must leave her with something very important to reflect on in this inevitable cycle of live amid the dismissive universe. “It’ll be okay. I’ll be back.” just will not suffice for a parent trying to console a child, perhaps not in the moment but going forward without him …

“After you kids came along, your mom, she said something to me I never quite understood. She said, “Now, we’re just here to be memories for our kids.” I think now I understand what she meant. Once you’re a parent, you’re the ghost of your children’s future.”

This is so very true. THIS is how I carry my beloved Grandparents with me. I have lived this myself after having my own children and watching them have my grandchildren. It was so affirming when I heard the movie quote the first time that I backed up the movie a couple time to let it sink in. I do live my life, especially with my family members, trying to give them important memories, not just pleasant ones but informative/instructive ones. I know my daughters were actually listening and paying attention when we were raising them because they live their own adult lives accordingly and even paraphrase things we told them growing up to their own children now. And I am hearing and seeing our grandchildren establishing their young lives to things my husband and I have said or taught them.

We celebrate Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and even Grandparents’ Day because it recognizes and confirms the basics of the family structure and passing on the blueprint, such that it is, to the next generations that we are blessed enough to be a foundational part of. Without it we are individual and sometimes uninhabitable planets wandering the universe without a sun to center us. If Cooper did not return he wanted his daughter to grow up and view his part of his life that she had lived with him as if it were one of the many text books she had collected on her bedroom shelf … return to the pages for that connection of love and kinship, and for the basic instructions of life that he would be leaving her with in order to build the future, especially without him. And this is also why history is so very important, good and bad, and should not be ‘rewritten’ according to current social norms/ideologies. Yep, there is a scene where Cooper counters his daughter’s teachers over the ‘new’ rewritten textbooks meant to stifle curiosity and focus only on what the government chooses the individual’s purpose to be according to acceptable standards. Sound familiar? As a human race we cannot move forward with the pressure by those who seek to influence our society by diminishing, obliterating and even abolishing the male/father role from our existence. The above opinion piece by Rep. Burgess Owens, Rep. Byron Donalds, and Jack Brewer precisely lays this out. Read it in full at the link.

~~Many thanks to Maggie and The Universal Spectator for reprint permission.