Small Fights; Large Love

It's the little battles. The small, usually unnoticed, personal fights a dad takes on for his children are the ones that speak loudest of love.

Among standard-bearers are Brit Fonz Chamberlain, who struggled with his depression in order to keep raising money for charity after having seen his son John, now 13, saved by a heart operation days after birth. There is also Ron Werstler, smacking wood with his hand for the entertainment of others and in order to raise money for double lung transplants to help kids including his 11-year-old son Brandon, who all suffer from Cystic Fibrosis. And finally, at least for now, we salute vet Louis Haros, who has been under increasing phone and personal pressure to take down the now-tattered American flag he has flown over his house. He promised his son it would fly until he returned from Iraq and while that will, hopefully, be soon, it hasn't happened yet. The flag still waves; the faher still faces the verbal shots of those who want to see the red, white and blue threads come down.

Each and others are small acts of defiance by fathers and large proclamations of their love.

Beck Mans Up

Foxman Glenn Beck sorta forgave his dad last year on Father's Day. The tv/radio personality and father of four (and future children's book author) offered a somewhat rambling discussion that included a slight smack to his mother — a depressed woman who committed suicide when he was in his teens — and a "thank you" to his alcoholic dad for helping him "man up."

Man up? That's the good that comes from an alcoholic father? Medical experts who discuss what a depressed dad who doesn't receive adequate treatment can do to his kids do seem to disagree with what Beck sees as praiseworthy. Still, if that's his opinion, so be it and we only have a few more weeks to await this year's FD Beckian proclamation.

Scary Visions

There is no scientific evidence, but perhaps some new dads get scary visions of the future. Those would be the ones who get male postpartum depression as they see trouble ahead for their children.

Mild scary would be the view of how one's own reputation will help and haunt your son, as is the case with Justin Trudeau, who carries both his father Pierre's name and reputation into his own political campaigns. Trudeau père was Canada's swinging 70s prime minister and his third son has decided to continue the good fight to keep his country together and do a bit of self-aggrandizing in the mean time.

A bit more frightening would be the fight of children over money in a way that threatens a great legacy. Such is the fate of the memory of Martin Luther King Jr., whose three surviving children are antagonists in court for the third time in four months, this time to battle for control over their mom's estate.

And, finally, there is the horror show of a son who wastes prodigious talent and takes his own life to the edge of the abyss, teeters ... and then falls. Such is the fate of Guillaume Depardieu, French actor-extraordinaire Gérard, who rebelled against his father for most of his life. The younger Depardieu, a blistering memoirist and lionized actor in his own right, weakened himself with drugs and other excess and lost his life to what has been described as a "lightening quick" strike by pneumonia.

The world is a scary place and new dads have reason to fret, but they need to fight the fear with hope for the future as well. There is enough father saddle their kids with. No need to throw one's depression in there too.

Dads Drown in Down

Willy Loman is the poster dad for depressed fathers, a middle aged depressive,dragging his sorry carcass under the weight of the world.

And while we don't want to dismiss those in that sorry state, recent studies suggest a surprising concern. Up to 10 percent of new dads suffer from PND, postnatal depression — the male version of the hormone induced post-partum depression in new moms.

There are risk factors and groups to help the suffering father. And the very best reason to admit the need for help is the possibility that not getting help can hurt your newborn's development.

** Is it better to have science validate our worries or to discover that every day, it seems, a dad has more to worry about. **