More Footsteps

Following in one's father's footsteps is an honored tradition. But sometimes it is best honored in the breach rather than observance.

Diana Clemente (as an example of a mobkid) is the owner of a Long Island car service and daughter of late Bonnano crime family street boss Anthony Spero. She has spent a lifetime publicly distancing herself from her father and his influences — and occassionally contesting reports to the contrary. She loved him, but ..."While I would not trade my father for any father in the world, I would certainly wish that ... who he was, was a little different."

Not yet able to wish his father was "a little different" is the third child-to-be of the second Dumbledore, Sir Michael Gambon. (Although it must be noted that if Gambon were different then No. 3 might not have gotten the chance to be.) His or her father, a 68-year-old actor who has been in most of the Harry Potter movies, is married to the wife with whom he shares a 44-year-old son and also is proud papa to 17-month-old Michael, courtesy of the woman who will be Three's mum as well. It sounds a bit confusing, but maybe papa is just getting better with age?

Because life is such that fathers do go up and down, but the goal is certainly to get better (smarter, nicer, more helpful) with age. And to that point, while VPOTUS candidate Joseph Biden is proud of Joe Sr., it is unlikely he wants to mimic the up and down financial trek his dad took.

Nor would the father want his son to ... because pride went (and should go) both ways. When Jr. became a senator, the father changed his job — and perhaps once again unsteadying his finances — as he went from used car salesman to realtor, just so a U.S. senator (like a poor mobkid) wouldn't have the burden of a dad who was in a money-making but distrusted profession.