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These are mostly chronologically ordered, but I have in some cases tried to cluster comments by topic so if there is something you are looking for (or trying to avoid), this might be helpful. But first, we have a special AAQC recognition this month! If you caught last month's quality contribution report, you may have seen @Soriek's first "International Update." Well, there were five Thursdays in June this year, and Soriek didn't miss one. Pulling multiple Quality Contribution reports on a regular "feature" of the Culture War thread is impressive and bespeaks substantial community appreciation of this user's efforts. Bravo, @Soriek!
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Notes -
To be frank, my dad and I never had many overlapping interests, either. He was a big football fan, played it in high school. He had been a scoutmaster in his youth. I neither played football nor did he push me toward scouts. I liked watching movies. By the time I began watching them without him he had lost interest and thought movies were mostly silly. I liked reading books. He saw me reading a John Updike book once-- Brazil I believe, and this was the cover of the paperback edition I had. He scoffed and asked me if I really read
novels. books like that (he was a type to judge a book by its cover.) My mom was an avid reader of romance novels so I guess he thought that's what it was. I don't know because I put it down out of shame and to this day still have never read it.My point is I don't think I particularly was close to my dad, even in adulthood when I made efforts to be closer. Friends would come over and he would be garrulous, but once they left he'd sit with me in silence, seemingly completely uninterested. The main question he would ask when I'd come home to visit was "What's the price of gas in Japan?" Once he asked this twice on the ride from the airport. But that was years ago. He did seem to love his grandchildren--my boys. Though the fact that I married a Japanese woman I think always sat wrong with him. He at some point put me in a box that he felt he understood enough that he didn't need to think about it any more, and he closed up the box and that was that. Of course I could be wrong. Maybe that's what I did to him.
He died almost a year ago exactly (off by a few weeks as I write this.) I don't mean to get maudlin or personal, but anyway the way you were brought up doesn't have to be the way you bring up your own brood, should you have any later in life. At least, that's my thinking. My boys are still in the oven; not quite done yet, not quite grown. We'll see.
I'm sorry for your loss, and I'm glad you're trying to be closer and more understanding with your kids! It's perfectly possible to be a good father overall and fail at that particular kind of bonding, though it is slightly saddening, at least you learned from his small missteps.
I can only endeavor to do the same eventually, since my kids are too busy swimming to even go into the oven for a few years haha.
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