As I wait at Schiphol airport for my flight to JFK, I’m reflecting on something I witnessed a few days ago while in Málaga. My parents and I went to see a couple of friends play with their jazz quartet at a resort on the coast, and while the atmosphere was nice and the music excellent, what really caught my eye and kept me entertained was a certain British family occupying the table in front of us. At first glance it was your typical family on holiday, but closer observation saw a father thoroughly engaged and present with his three boys as the mother sat back, relaxed, and recorded the memories being made with her camera. These boys were young - the eldest not more than ten - but they were all active, well-behaved and having fun. Most of all, they were reveling in their father’s attention. He’d get up at regular intervals and start dancing to the music with them, or he’d play the air guitar on their tummies, or he’d sit with one of them on his lap. I remember thinking, I hope this mother knows what she has.
Sadly, what was playing out before me has become an atypical scenario. The new normal is parents with their 2.5 children, each sitting with their smartphone or tablet, fully absorbed in playing Candy Crush or some other senseless game on their devices. They ignore each other, unaware of their surroundings, detached from the present. Not rarely enough, one or both of the parents are slowly getting drunk and irritated as their children grow bored and petulant.
I don’t know this British family, but what I saw blessed my heart. From the relatively short time I watched them, I could tell there was a lot of love and order there. This family sat for several hours enjoying the music and their surroundings. None of the three boys had a device. When they weren’t moving to the music, they were sitting around the table in well-behaved fashion. At one point, one of them pulled out some toy cars to play with. I can’t remember the last time I saw a kid play with actual toys.
Part of me fell in love with this dad. I know nothing of his character or the dynamics of his family life, but what I saw was a father who was engaged and present, showing his boys how to have a good time, how to enjoy the moment, and how to make their mother glow. It’s hard for me not to be cynical at this stage of my life - most men just aren’t like this anymore. But to be fair, while there is truth to my cynicism, I know that there are good dads everywhere. They are fewer and farther between, but they are there. In fact, I know several of them personally.
If you are one, I applaud you and I thank you. If you aren’t one, there’s nothing stopping you from starting. And maybe someday there’ll be a stranger sitting at a restaurant watching you and thinking, dang, I hope his wife knows what she has.
