My friends and I were all deathly afraid of our fathers, which was right and proper and even biblically ordained. Fathers were angry; it was their job.
We were kids without fathers, so we found our fathers on wax and on the streets and in history, and in a way, that was a gift. We got to pick and choose the ancestors who would inspire the world we were going to make for ourselves.
Our fathers gave us many laws which they had learned from their
fathers. These laws were good.
I'm not saying that all women are blameless - all women are not. There are women with despicable characters who are cruel and terrible and some of them are mothers. But why do we blame our mothers more than our fathers? We let our fathers get away scot-free. We hardly even knew who they were in many cases, given the way this culture raises kids, and they may have been quite cruel. They may even have raped us as children, but even if they raped us, we will blame our mothers for not protecting us instead of blaming our fathers who actually did it.
I would never, ever desert my child. A lot of my friends didn't have fathers growing up, and they were very upset that their fathers weren't around. I was lucky to have mine around.
Our fathers were Englishmen which came over this great ocean, and were ready to perish in this wilderness.
All fathers are invisible in daytime; daytime is ruled by mothers and fathers come out at night. Darkness brings home fathers, with their real, unspeakable power. There is more to fathers than meets the eye.
When I went to first grade and the other children said that their fathers were farmers, I simply didn't believe them. I agreed in order to be polite, but in my heart I knew that those men were impostors, as farmers and as fathers, too. In my youthful estimation, Laurence Cook defined both categories. To really believe that others even existed in either category was to break the First Commandment.
My friends were raised by their maids. They didn't see their fathers, who used to travel for work, and there were facades of family vacations. I have grown up to be completely intolerant of fake relationships. That's because of how my parents were.
When white Americans frankly peel back the layers of our commingled pasts, we are all marked by it. Whether a company or an individual, we are marred either by our connections to the specific crimes and injuries of our fathers and their fathers. Or we are tainted by the failures of our fathers to fulfill our national credos when their courage was most needed. We are formed in molds twisted by the gifts we received at the expense of others. It is not our “fault.” But it is undeniably our inheritance.
We need our Dads right now, we need strong fathers. I really want fathers to get close to their children.
I want to congratulate all the men out there who are working diligently to be good fathers whether they are stepfathers, or biological fathers or just spiritual fathers.
We were granted the right to exist by the God of our fathers at the glimmer of the dawn of human civilization nearly 4,000 years ago. For that right, which has been sanctified in Jewish blood from generation to generation, we have paid a price unexampled in the annals of the nations.
And quit bringing up our forefathers and saying they were civil libertarians. Our founding fathers would have never tolerated any of this crap. For God's sake, they were blowing peoples' heads off because they put a tax on their breakfast beverage. And it wasn't even coffee.
It is not that fathers are better or worse, not that they are more loved or criticized, but rather that they are viewed with far less intensity. There is no Philip Roth or Woody Allen or Nancy Friday who writes about fathers with a runaway excess of humor, horror ... feeling. Most of us let our fathers off the hook.
Our fathers and grandfathers who poured over the Midwest were self-reliant, rugged, God-fearing people of indomitable courage...They asked only for freedom of opportunity and equal chance. In these conceptions lies the real basis of American democracy. They and their fathers give a genius to American institutions that distinguished our people from any other in the world.
Some people had fathers who were bankers or farmers, my father made films, that's how I saw it. As for the movie stars, they were just around, some of them were friends, others weren't, it was all just a part of my everyday life.