Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 17, 1990 TAG: 9006140410
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOE KENNEDY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
But when you had a child, and saw him or her begin to develop into the mysterious mix of you and the woman who joined with you to produce that child, the miracle became plain.
Except, maybe, for motherhood, there is nothing like fatherhood in this world.
Nobody ever tells you that. Instead they tell you that children are expensive, that they can be a lot of trouble.
They don't tell you what makes the anxieties worthwhile.
No wonder. There's nothing about a child's smile, or the way he throws out his arms and flops on the ground after swings and misses for the third time, or her first, nonsensical attempt at making up a joke, that hasn't already been appropriated for a cloying TV commercial.
Those sun-washed video images say it all, except how it feels.
When we asked the fathers and sons among our readers to send us their pictures for Father's Day, we expected to receive a lot of letters with photographs of look-alikes, and we did - 90 in all.
We received a lot of stories about fathers and sons who hunt and fish together, walk and talk the same way, grow apples, fly airplanes, play music, practice dentistry and even "share a taste for the finer things in life."
We received a couple of notes from fathers and daughters, asking that they be included in this story, and we said, sure, we can do that.
We did not expect to have that father-son (or father-daughter) feeling strike us as we read the notes and letters that poured in. We did not expect to have a prosaic photograph - of a father, say, flexing his muscles with his toddler son, or of father and son standing together in wedding-day tuxedos - cause a rise in our emotions.
But it happened. Why? Because once you cut through the struggles of family life and the cliched images of the TV commercials, what you get is more than just a list of "chips off the old block." What you get is love, often flavored with humor.
Fatherhood. Nobody said it would be easy. Today, our readers tell us why it is worthwhile.
\ Debi Firebaugh of Roanoke says her husband, Steve, a golf pro, doesn't get to spend as much time as he would like with their daughter, April, who is 2. But he has taught her to "hit a golf ball solid," and has given her toddler-size golf clubs.
Steve may get one day off per week, if he's lucky. He spends those days with April, doing chores and errands or simply playing.
"She cherishes her `April days' with her daddy as much as she does her weekends with her mom," Firebaugh says.
\ Daniel Sowers, a senior at Roanoke College, says he and his father, Danny, a Wythe County teacher, are nearly the same height and weight and share their dark features. They love sports and nature. Each is reserved, "but we both know that though it has not been said very often . . . we love each other and we will always be there for one another in any circumstance."
\ Sharon Akers of Southeast Roanoke says her father-in-law, Robert Akers, is a soft-spoken family man who walks just like his son (her husband), Richard Akers. Both are what fathers should be, she says. Robert, in particular, is "a very good teacher - he has taught his son well."
\ Kathryn Fernatt of Roanoke not only looks more like her father than her mother but resembles him in many other ways.
"We're both overweight, assertive, demanding, aggressive, personable and family-oriented," she says.
Both do much community work and both are amateur comedians, as well.
"I am not the chip or the block," says Katherine Berkeley of Roanoke, "just the mom" - a mom who has remained friendly with her former husband, Beverley Berkeley III, "because we share a common love and pride for our son, Michael."
Bev Berkeley is a captain for USAir. Michael is in flight training for Continental Airlines.
"I wish Bev a happy Father's Day for giving me the best part of my life - my son," Berkeley writes.
The Robert Wayne Stinnett family of Vinton consists of five children whose mother sent baby pictures showing how the four boys resembled each other and their father as toddlers.
"Not only do they look alike," she writes, "but act alike, too. I mean exactly."
\ William L. Byrd Sr. of Martinsville says his son, William Jr., "has always been the best son any father could want."
They look alike. They also wear the same size shoes, shorts, T-shirts and shirts and enjoy hunting, fishing and auto racing.
He closes with words that are central to the love between fathers and sons.
"Many people have told me as long as my son lives, I'll never die."
It's less an accident that so many fathers and sons share the same interests than that they look alike.
Parents often act in ways they want their children to emulate, says Thomas Ollendick, a psychology professor at Virginia Tech. That's called "modeling."
And children are eager to win their parents' approval, thinking, "If I'm like dad, and like to do the things he likes to do, I will more likely be accepted, loved and cherished by him."
Looking like your father is more chancy.
"Features are based upon the function of a very large collection of genes," says Ronald Bauerle, a geneticist at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.
Each parent contributes one complement of genes - there are 23 pairs to an individual - "and it's the way the genes happen to sort out and how they're inherited in each individual offspring that will lead to the specific resemblances that one child will have versus another."
In some families, children resemble not their parents but their grandparents or cousins.
Bauerle has a grand-niece who looks "incredibly similar" to his daughter when she was the same age. "It's actually spooky," he says.
As is evident in the pictures we received, sometimes people look more alike as they grow older. Choice of wardrobe or eyeglasses plays a role, but things like hairlines and body changes caused by hormonal changes also are involved, Bauerle says.
"It boils down to the fact that we are the results of a somewhat random assortment . . . of many different genes," he says. "This is what makes human beings very interesting."
Our thanks to all who wrote in. Enjoy your day with dad.
by CNB