What You See; What You Get

You can't tell the dad by the casing. Consider, an older British sportsman or a drug-taking American urban-life celebrator. Quick quiz: who's the better father?

The 57-year-old John Darwin was declared dead four years ago. The canoe done him in. It was said. But, it turns out that conniving with his wife and lying to his sons — who say they won't forgive him — allowed for a pleasant life in Panama with some thanks to the kindly insurance company paying off on his life insurance.

On the other hand, a shaped-but-not-completely-scripted "reality" show, debuting Sunday, Dec. 9, offers a look at a father, Snoop Dogg (aka Calvin Broadus) to be exact, who makes a number of non-traditional choices, but clearly loves his kid. As he schizzles it:

This ain't the Huxtables
But we livin' comfortable
And I don't make my kids eat their vegetables ...



Also on display, the thankful dad:

** The reality dad is too painful; better the reality tv show. **

Dueling Memoir Marketing

Is author David Sheff in competition with son Nic or laying the groundwork for his child's success?

Children and fathers remember the same situation differently. Although not always in print. Sheff elder has just had his memoir of living through his son's crystal meth addiction, Beautiful Boy: A Journey Through a Son's Addiction, selected for the February Starbucks in-store literary promotion. Sheff younger has his memoir, Tweak: Growing Up on Amphetamines, also scheduled for a Feb. publication, although his will be without the coffee pushers imprimatur.

** Children grow up so fast — even when not hooked on speed. Babump bump. **

Man Up

Ontario Provincial Parliament Member, liberal house leader and father of two Michael Bryant has his politics informed by a father who resigned as mayor of Esquimalt, British Columbia, because he found himself flipping up his rear viev mirror rather than watch four-year-old Michael chase after him when he left for work.

Contrast that experience with what former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey — who resigned under the shadow of a combined scandals of coming out of the closet as a gay man and having an affair with an unqualified political appointee — is teaching his five-year-old daughter Jacqueline by scheduling a birthday party (complete with ponies) without telling his estranged wife Dina, who has primary custody. Says a friend and critic, "He ought to man up and grow up and realize it was he who created this mess. What I would say to him is, "Live by the rules and shut your face.' Jim'll use Jackie as a pawn. "It's the pony. It's the party.' It's not about the pony, it's about him."

** And as a dad or politician, it just can't be about you. **

Daddy Dumbest

A recent study out of Britain says SAHDs can be bad for boys — but strangely not for girls. It's not clear whether this might only apply to British dads, but one part that might be missing from the study was a look at the couple, if not just at the mom.

In the news today is a J.R. Rotem newly — or maybe only — famous for possibly impregnating (second item) a certain Ms. Spears. According to this report, an unidentified gal pal says, "She's not in love ... but she [the genius behind Kevin Federline's daddy kudos] knows he would make a great father to their baby."

Screaming out equally for common sense is the news of a 35-year-old incarcerated Brit winning court sanctioned approval to artificially inseminate his 49-year-old wife (mother of three from other "until death do we part" relationships). The earliest he will walk freely from the pokey will be in two years. Fortunately, at least based on the British report, it seems pretty unlikely he'll be staying at home to raise any son he and the missus conceive.

** Wouldn't everyone agree it would be better to get these boys and girls blow up dolls to keep them away from ruining the lives of others, including the unborn? **

Father, You're Wrong

When it is revealed that lots of years of school doesn't prepare you for 8th grade math — "you're doing it the wrong way, dad," said Thing 1, correctly — that children are always telling dad how wrong he is comes into focus.

But this isn't about who is right or even how important the issue, just an interesting way to define the relationship. I was wrong about the math problem but still felt like I must have gotten something right when I received a (relatively unironic, in the sense that it came without an eye-roll) thanks for trying to help. I like to think the emotional health of both father and child is explained in how and when the younger challenges the older.

So, it says something positive about the relationship of Jesse Jackson Sr. and Jr. when namesake challenges name and writes that Barack Obama is keeping in mind the struggle of African-American's when he talks of the struggles of the economically less privileged. Not that he is challenging a core belief, such as when Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said, "My father opposed partition [of Israel and Palestine] and was wrong"

What is also telling is that Jackson is able to discuss his belief in his father's error while the latter was still alive. In an interview for his new book, "Born Standing Up," (the autobiography, not the picture book for kids, "The Alphabet A to Y"), comic, writer, star Steve Martin says that he couldn't have written of how wrong he thought his father often was or how unhappy he was when growing up, "[The book] would have been different. I would have had to negotiate certain things. But who knows what my father would have thought? And ultimately he comes off looking better. The worst thing that can happen to a father is to have a child who's a writer." Or, maybe not.

** Not to get carried away. It is good to hear a respectful "you're wrong." It is a nice change from the "you're an idiot" that Things 1 and 2 and many other children often lightly toss in their father's face. **

More Money Matters

If only this could be settled by sending along a $2 bill, like the one that Becky Sigmon's dad gave her fifty years ago that still (in replica) sits folded, spindled and a bit mutilated in her wallet — although his love and wisdom remains in her heart and head.

Alas, not even a magic two-spot would pay the lawyers "helping" to an economic argument sure to be presented in various and differing judicial venues that involves a sperm-donating dad and a college bound eighteen-year-old who was raised a continent away by two lesbians.

The case being decided in the best interest of the dad and child? As they say in the New York where this all began with a friend deciding to help out a friend, "fuhgeddaboudit."

** Once again the lesson is that dad's money doesn't purchase love and dad's love can't beget money. **

Schnozz on Ice

There is much Wayne received from father Walter, but the most obvious is surely the "Gretzky nose," doubly profiled in today's objet d'eBay.

The framed Gretzkys, accompanied by two commemorative medallions, are a fairly effective visual metaphor for the joy of father and child focused in the same direction. Does each understand the other's dreams? Probably not exactly. But it always helps if they can treat the same path, even for a few days as the fathers of Philadelphia Flyers did recently, roadtripping with their sons.

** A child or father can respect the other without understanding their hope, but there is forever joy found in its sharing. **

Past Is Always Present

What decides whether a child forgives his or her dad when the world probably can't? Circumstance? Self-deluding rationalizations? Love?

In The Mascot: Unraveling the Mystery of My Jewish Father's Nazi Boyhood, defined by The New York Times as "a book to keep you up at night," author Mark Kurzem traces the life path and his own discovery of how his father went from a child of about five seeing his parents killed by Nazi soldiers to becoming their pet to being adopted by rich anti-semites to an Australian upbringing to keeping the secrets of his life from himself, his wife and children until he was in his eighth decade.

In another study of a father Malte Luddin, who hardly remembers his Nazi loving dad in person, created the documentary "Two or Three Things I Know About Him." Putting his sister on camera he inquires of her feelings about dad and, hesitatingly, she answers, "I can't say [my father] wasn't a criminal, but for me, he definitely wasn't,"

And beyond art there is life. And in another example of the messiness of life, Baltimore Ravens running back Musa Smith can be a star of the University of Georgia's 2003 Sugar Bowl victory and have a middling or perhaps someday star day or even career in the NFL, but he will always have the burden — the internet shadow if nothing else — of his dad as dupe (?) of Islamic terrorists involved with the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993.

Smith, like every child can say his dad's deeds are behind him, but as shown by others who are still trying to understand themselves and their fathers by looking at actions taken decades ago, that it never completely the case.

** No simpler way to say it than fathers pass on much more than genes. **