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A Father's Emotional Legacy
What Will You Pass Down to Your Children?
By Ann Haarman
For some, their fathers didn't show them that men could talk about their feelings. Like Olsen, Jon Hope of Lawrenceville, Ga., is still learning how to express emotion. "I think to this day it's a problem that I struggle with in my marriage," he says. "And it's something that I learned from both my parents – to suppress emotions, to keep things to yourself and not really let people know what your feelings are. It leaves us playing a lot of guessing games with each other."
For others, their fathers simply weren't there, whether by choice or by necessity. After his parents divorced, Jim Ruiz never saw his father again. "He's re-married with two kids," says Ruiz, of New York City. "He's moved on, even though he had three sons, and he doesn't even want to know how we turned out."
A single dad, Ruiz struggles with the same issues his father must have faced 30 years ago. "[My son] is going to come from a broken home," Ruiz says. "I just want to let him know that he's loved by both parents."
Sometimes work schedules create emotional and physical distance.
"I can recall [my dad] coming home after dark and leaving before the sun came up and going in on weekends," says John Witoshynsky of Hollywood, Fla. Now that he's a dad, Witoshynsky often logs 60-hour work weeks. And like his dad, he has trouble balancing work with family. "I don't spend enough time with my son and I certainly think back to my childhood," he says.
