Father's Day 2008

Anyone who follows this blog (meaning mostly my kids and some relatives who might be having a slow day) will know that I think many of the posts by G.L. Hoffman, the CEO and Chairman of a site called JobDig, are pretty neat. Common sense delivered sometimes with a sense of humor and other times with a serious message. His blog is called What Would Dad Say.

While it is still the graduation season and on this father's day, when we are reminded of our relationships with our own parents as well as our children, it reminded me of a quote that GL borrowed in a post some weeks ago in which John Qunicy Adams' mother Abigail wrote to her son explaining why it was important that he go with his father to France. It is powerful message all by itself and knowing what we know today, it becomes even more powerful:

“These are the times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed. The habits of vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great necessities call out great virtues. When a mind is raised, and animated by scenes that engage the heart, then those qualities which would otherwise lay dormant, wake into life and form the character of the hero and the statesman.”

….from the Pullitzer Prize-winning book, John Adams, by David McCullough [Fabulous book and PBS series by the way]

John Adams lived long enough to see the results of the value system taught his son by Abigail and himself. Tim Russert as we all know by now, didn't.

But for those of us who are fathers, mother's or simply responsible for raising a child, I suggest that if you did not see today's edition of Meet the Press, it's well worth watching if only to hear, in Russert's own words, what it means to be not just a father, but a parent.

You will be better for it.