In Praise of Revolutionary Fathers
Here’s to all the men in our lives who are father figures, helping bring joy and love and strength in ways they know best. Baseball games were never my father’s cup of tea. Instead, he schooled me in revolutionary ideologies, intellectual histories, and general shenanigans of the best kind. For Father’s Day 2020, a year unlike any other the planet has known… as we collectively weather our ongoing COVID-19 moment, I offer a conventional Top-5 List… celebrating my very unconventional dad. Presenting, the least universal traits of Fatherhood.
Universal Lessons My Father Shared in The Most Unusual Ways
5. Persistence in The Forest Bath of Parallel Parking // Expect the Unexpected
Life was fun with a dad who is impulsive and jovial. When it came time for me to learn driving, I was short for our 1980s giant American ultramarine blue and gold Buick with the T-Roof. I did not know at the time, but my father trusted the enormous American car over the newly acquired Honda family car. In case I hit something as a young learner, he wanted me in the armada. To help me see over the steering wheel, we would dismantle the thick beige sofa seat base of the couch. Then, with the giant cushion in the car, in the driver’s seat, I would sit atop my scotch-guard throne, ready to learn parallel parking with Dad. In a state park with fallen oak trees, my father would find the best trees to simulate vehicle bumpers. Repeatedly, for hours, I practiced my parallel parking. This skill came in handy 20 years later in New York City, where I lived for a decade. But before I would live in the Big Apple of Manhattan, New York, USA, I was still a teenager learning to drive a car.
Dad and I would leave our forest bath of parallel parking, and head to the small college town in northeast Arkansas we called home, and I would navigate stop lights with four way intersections, and oncoming traffic, all the while hearing my dad say “Expect the unexpected.” The Dad School of Defensive Driving and Parallel Parking for the win.
4. Tenacity: Know Your History
My father told me, a California beach kid, how to understand geo-political history. Lessons I learned in elementary school outside the classroom — A walk on the Pacific Ocean shores also included learning how Nehru is part of The Non-Aligned Movement, established 1961. My father did not take us bowling, but he was king of teaching about the women’s activist Angela Davis and the worker’s rights hero César Chavez. He taught us how to find countries on a map, and explained the dangers of dismantling a perfectly good democracy, with case studies from Latin America, or when the CIA overthrew Iran’s Prime Minister Mohammad Mosadegh in 1953 (It was for the oil).
My father coached me to memorize my grandparents names back through seven generations. As a kindergartner, I could count to a hundred, say my ABC’s, and tell you my great-grandparents’ names all the way to the 1700s. With biblical names like Jacob and Isaac, and Arabic names like Nasr “Victory” I have lovely forefathers names from which to choose, but I happen adore my two grandpas, both named beautifully. My father’s dad is Tawfiq which translates from Arabic as “Success.” He was a great card player. On my mother’s side, the man known for his height and strength, and for laughing with all his might, my mother’s dad is Baheej / “Joyful.”
It went like this: “I am the daughter of H, who is the daughter of Joyful” is a great way to feel confused in the moment, but ultimately, empowered!
3. Be Curious and Welcoming
My father, who learned English and French as additional non-native languages, volunteered to teach basic English reading skills to an illiterate white farmer in Arkansas, where we lived in the 1980s. I thought it was normal to have a grown man in overalls at our dining table learning to spell with my father.
2. Irreverent Reverence
Deeply skeptical of institutions, my father trusts none and all. He taught me about apartheid, and about the women and men who broke those broken laws. He took me into mosques, temples, churches, universities, and basketball arenas. We loved basketball, and the altar of the great three-point shot in the glory days of 1970s UCLA college basketball is legendary in our home, not because we played, but because we watched court-side while my father was a student there. I love this picture I took in 2019 of my father, and A Father. My father, borrowing The Father’s Priest Cloak, and the priest letting him wear the costume, says a lot to be about irreverent humor both men share:
- Connect with your friends, again and again
My father has stayed in touch with most of his college friends, and especially his college roommate from the 1960s (hi, Uncle Joe). The dynamic duo are a true Odd Couple. My father, chaotic, and Uncle Joe, orderly. My father impulsive and quick to react, Uncle Joe, deliberate and deliberating.
In 2020, my father still drives out of his way to make a stop that is “on the way” to see a friend. During this pandemic, he calls, and he calls again. He always checked on his friends. My father does not know how to text message, but that is okay with his revolutionary friends.
To the “Son of Success” thanks for being you, Baba,
To all the beautiful father figures, Happy Father’s Day.
