My Indispensible Father

One thing I always remember about my father was how easily he proved he was indispensable as an engineer. Where some people are afraid to take a vacation because it might show their employer how much they aren't needed, my father kept track of companies after he left them. He could show a very strong correlation to his leaving a company and a decline in their success. From large fortune 500 companies to small ones.

Sometimes I think that fathers might feel worried about how indispensable in some way about their jobs as fathers. If they grew up without a dad, and their mothers especially downgraded the idea of having a dad, (likely for the good reason of trying to convince the child they weren't missing out on something the mother felt incapable of providing) they might think they are not needed. If fathers are seen primarily as bread-winners and a paycheck, I could see where a guy might get the idea they have little value to a family until they can provide the six figure salary. But when you get down to it, societies where fathers are absent have many struggles. Dads are not a luxury of the rich, nor a should they be measured in success as a source of luxury.



I can't say I have the same track record with businesses as my father, but then my career does not directly impact the strategic value a company might have like my Father's. I'm always a cost center, and with only one exception never a profit center.

But my Dad made his mark on the family not through any strategic value, but through him being concerned, reliable, and responsible. In short he showed up every day, actually wanted us to succeed in everything we did, and just let things fall together (rather than fall apart). What happened that made him indispensable to us was a natural process, something anyone will do given the right concern and vantage point.

My brothers and sisters can all remember times that he influenced our lives greatly with just a little chat or careful placement of gleaned wisdom. But those weren't the product of some boardroom meeting with chairmen on how to raise the influence of the father figure in my home, they were just the product of him showing up every day where he wouldn't  miss the opportunities that arose to be a father. He didn't do marketing research to know how best to find and capitalize on these opportunities, he simply cared about us, and something natural to everyone started to make connections with our current behavior and the successful behavior he saw in the world.


In fact, probably no one was less inclined to bureaucratic born initiative than my Father.

That's a power fathers have had since the days of rubbing sticks to make fire. While a degree is great to help provide food and shelter for a family, just being there and caring is enough to provide fatherhood to a family.