The Sons Of My Friend

You might categorize my relationship with my father as “cool.” Not cool as in Fonzie cool. I mean cool as in chilly. Or not warm. Nonexistent, even. 

Lots of kids have relationships like that with their parents. It’s part of the natural awkwardness that invades the teen years, destroying the fragile bonds that were sewn before puberty. In my case, my Dad simply wasn’t interested in my sister or myself. We were financial burdens, obligations to be handled like the phone bill or the mortgage.

So you can imagine my surprise when I went over to my old friend Scott’s house tonight and saw firsthand his relationship with his two boys. Scott was always the most open and frank guy among our small group of friends, but I never imagined he would be so good at raising kids until I had the chance to talk with his boys. Or, rather, to watch them interact with each other. The walls that I once had with my father were not apparent between them, replaced instead by honesty and open dialogue.

I would never have wanted a conversation with my Dad about my masturbation habits, but there was Scott talking about it with his kids in obvious terms in front of me, a relative stranger. Scott seemed to be able to share his deepest secrets with his sons, and they seemed willing and eager to share theirs with him. Like Scott, I’m pretty blunt and to-the-point, and seeing their interaction gave me a glimpse of the type of relationship I would have built with my own kids had life offered the chance to me.

Besides that, it also made me feel good about the choices I’ve made in my friends. If one can be judged by the children one produces, then my friends are among the greatest people ever known. They have produced children who are warm, intelligent, thoughtful, inquisitive (an important one!), and funny. My friends have some pretty amazing kids, and it tells me something about those people I’ve chosen to populate my life. Through the children of my friends, I’ve learned that I’m a very lucky guy, indeed.