Meaningful Returns

“One time I came home from college for a vacation, and my sister was sort of unhappy, almost crying. The Girl Scouts were having a father-daughter banquet, but our father was out on the road, selling uniforms. So I said I would take her, being the brother (I’m nine years older, so it wasn’t so crazy).

When we got there, I sat among the fathers for a while, but soon became sick of them. All these fathers bring their daughters to this nice little banquet, and all they talked about was the stock market–they don’t know how to talk to their own children, much less their children’s friends.”

The passage above comes from Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character), which is an incredible book with unbelievable little stories from the life of the late Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist, Richard Feynman. It’s basically a book of capers, with these sudden, devastating nuggets of life truth.

Once more, with emphasis: “All these fathers bring their daughters to this nice little banquet, and all they talked about was the stock market–they don’t know how to talk to their own children, much less their children’s friends.”

What if we made it our goal to not get included in someone’s memoir because we are total duds as parents? It’s not really that hard. You just need to actually show up and love your children. Not nominally, like “Oh, yeah, I went to the father-daughter dance,” but actually being PRESENT there. Get to know the kids that your children are friends with. Be goofy. Make dumb jokes. Wear jeans.

Stop talking about the stock market.