Daddies are important

I read this article in the papers under the "parent to parent" category, titled "A love measured in memories". It's written by Jason Wong, an active/highly-participatory Dad who wrote this very lovely article. I was touched by several things he wrote. It is very Dad-skewed but I think it is relevant and true to all parents.

Here's sharing some of them:

• "if you want to be in your children's memories tomorrow, you have to be in their lives today."
• "it is easier to build boys and children than to fix men and adults."
• (from wife) "...while everyone else looked up to you [writer] at work or within my other circles, no one knew what Iyou was like at home." [context: he had refused to help out with the child choosing to be in front of the telly instead and in frustration, his wife had written to him. This statement jolted him as he realised that what the wife said was true - that he was so quiet and non-participative at home that his children were alienated from him.]
  
• "... I received the best Father's Day gift ever. My son gave me a hand-drawn card. Each page had a picture and a sentence like 'Thank you for reading books to me' or 'Thank you for telling me ghost stories'."
• (Writer had taken his father out for a walk.) "My 10-year-old son came to sit with us [on bench], my dad looked at my son and said in dialect: "Your dad looks after you now. Make sure you look after your dad when he is old, just like what he is doing for me now."
• "The richness of a father's love is best measured in the lasting memories we leave for our children."

Another trick I picked reading this article: close your eyes and recall scenes of your parent and you.

What do you "see"? And what do you want your child to "see"?