This Father’s Day, my kids and I have a lot to talk about. If only they were listening. It’s not me, it’s them. Now that they’re teenagers, they’ve tuned out their old man.
Damn. Just when I was getting to the good stuff.
For one thing, at 55, I feel confident in sharing my thoughts about how to live a good life. I’ve been a liberal, a conservative, and everything in-between. I’ve visited 43 states, and I’ve lived in five of them. I’ve been knocked down, and I’ve gotten up—and been knocked down again. I had an elite education, and yet my mistakes, failures, and setbacks were my best teachers.
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For another, mankind is in a fix and the stakes are high. The world is in disarray, and our country is more divided and polarized than it has been since the 1960s. Against that backdrop, I’m itching to share some sage advice to the three people who will one day—when I’ve met my final deadline and gone to the big newsroom in the sky—represent my most important legacy.
I can’t fault my kids for not listening. With the Navarrettes, tuning out our fathers is a family tradition. The youngest of five boys, my dad was the runt of the litter. His childhood nickname was “pee wee.” He dreamed of being a police officer, and he spent 37 years on the job. And it was all because my father didn’t listen to his dad, my grandfather, when the old man from Chihuahua, Mexico, told him that he was too small for police work.
As a teenager back in the mid-1980s, I wasn’t listening to my dad, either—even with all the yelling.
I was listening to Bruce Springsteen, the speeches of Robert Kennedy, and my hormones—which lit up like a pinball machine thanks to the pretty cheerleader in my advanced algebra class. Raised in a small farm town in Central California—the kind of place where you can’t hide—my greatest wish was to run away from home. Eventually, I ran off to New England for college, as far as I could run without getting my feet wet in the Atlantic. When I arrived, I was homesick and couldn’t wait to run back.
Today, the universe in which my wife and I raise our kids bears little resemblance to the one in which I was raised.
I grew up in a hardscrabble town in the center of California that was 70 percent Mexican American, and my kids are coming of age in an affluent coastal community that is 80 percent white. But what really bothers me is that a fire in the belly is not transferable from one generation to the next. I can’t give my kids the passion that I had to look for something better.
Americans are supposed to leave this country better than we found it. We failed. We’re low on empathy and understanding. It’s one thing to argue over opinions, but we can’t even agree on facts. Too often, our politics dictate our news sources. We have no interest in having our beliefs challenged, or questioning why we believe what we believe. We can be “unfriended,” canceled or worse simply for voicing an opposing or unpopular point of view.
But more people are turning away from the screeching voices at the extremes and drifting toward those of us who make camp in the sensible center.
That’s where I want my kids to live—in the center. At our dinner table, they know that Dad doesn’t care what they think as long as they, well, think. They know that I don’t need for them to agree with everything I believe, only for them to think deeply and think critically. And they know it’s important to see issues from different points of view.
This Father’s Day, if my kids would tune me back in for just 24 hours, I would jump on my soapbox and give them this advice:
Don’t be afraid to be emotional. Emotion is good. But always strive to be at an even keel. That’s where you control your emotions, and they don’t control you.
Be kind to others and treat everyone with respect. Just because you shouldn’t let anyone look down on you doesn’t mean you should look down on someone else.
Own your words, actions, and decisions. Take responsibility for what you say and do. In a world full of people who make excuses and shift blame, be different by being accountable.
Don’t play the victim, even in those instances when you are, in fact, being victimized. Doing so only gives those who torment you more power over you than they deserve to have.
You can be friends with people even if you don’t agree politically. Argue your truth, but argue fairly and with an open mind that allows for the possibility that you’re wrong. Because, oftentimes, you will be.
Talk less. Listen more. Think harder. And never stop learning. Throughout life, you’ll learn more from those who challenge you than you will from those who fall in line behind you.
Intelligence is fine. But social skills, hard work, and perseverance carry you farther. Rather than being the smartest person in the room, be the person that others want in the room.
Finally, always stay curious. There is no shame in not knowing the answer, but you should be embarrassed if you don’t care enough to find out.
If my kids do all that, they can be better people. And better people can make this a better country.
Our kids are a giant billboard on the highway of life that announces to the world what kind of job we’ve done as parents. If we were too strict, or too permissive, if we neglected or smothered them, it’ll all show up on the canvas under the bright lights. It’s a sobering thought.
I know my kids won’t ignore me forever. That’s how growing up works. As the saying goes, my father really did get a lot wiser the older I got.
When I was a teenager, he didn't know anything. Now that I’m a dad raising teenagers, I have an even greater respect for the guy. I also have an understanding of just how difficult this gig is. My dad wasn’t perfect, and he made mistakes. But overall, he did great.
What I appreciate most was that he always tried to be “present” for me, even when his job made that tough to do. I remember him coming to my little league games in his squad car, parking just outside the fence with the police radio on.
Thanks, Dad—for always showing up. Happy Father’s Day.
