my dad taught me to think critically, and that I can do whatever I want and that I'm smarter than most boys. And to like good music and sci fi.

My dad taught me to be the best possible person, the best in sports, the best in school, etc., regardless of my gender.
He was also the most supportive of my family when I came out. Go daddy!

Your Dad is/was a pretty hep cat; mine was a bit of a square (he preferred barbershop quartet to Hendrix and The Kingston Trio to Bob Dylan).

Why is it that when I look at your dad I hear a Southern drawl quoting?:

"...I keep getting older and they stay the same age."

Ha ha, how funny. I actually found this picture a few months ago while looking for pieces to include in a photography collection that I had to build for my photography class. We ended up discussing it as an example of the ways that parts of photos are "coded" in a sense to show what time period they were taken in. I had no idea it was your dad!

Wow, your dad was (and probably still is) a really good looking man!

This was my first father's day without my dad, but it brings me such joy to hear stories about loving relationships between parents and children. My father was my best friend and a strong feminist influence in my life. I celebrated him yesterday, and I always will. My love to all of you and your fathers.

I'm loving that mustache.

I always thought my dad was kind of a square. My extended family on his side is very conservative and religious. So, when I got pregnant and decided to terminate the pregnancy, I hesitated to tell my family - specifically, my dad. However, my boyfriend and I broke up and I ended up telling my parents, and they couldn't have been more supportive. My mom took me to the appointment, and when I came home there were chocolates and magazines from my dad on my pillow. I didn't give him enough credit for being awesome and supportive before that, and I'm glad I am getting a chance to know him better. He's cooler than I thought. I love my dad!

My dad has always been the one to say I could do whatever I set my mind to, no limits, even when I was being told by other sources that my role was to be dainty and quiet. He was the one to buy me a toy dump truck and video games when my mom claimed that I didn't need those because they were toys for my brother. He's also the one that supports my views instead of trying to convince me that I'm evil for thinking that women are actually people and deserve to be treated as such. It's actually kind of funny to say that I started to think like a feminist - in spite of what my mom said - because my dad is a closet feminist, but it's true.

My dad and his brothers and father all have the exact same poses. If they are just standing/chilling, they have this weird thing where one hip is turned out and the leg is bent, and most of the body weight is on the other leg. Another pose is if they are lying down. They have their hands behind their head, and their legs crossed at the ankles. It's hilarious looking through old pictures and seeing how many generations it goes back. My sister, brother, and I have also inherited these poses.

Jessica--couldn't resist a try at de-aging the photo. It's yours if you like it, and if not, it was still fun to tinker with.

http://tinyurl.com/5y6gpn

Wow, thanks - that's awesome!

And thank you (all) for also recognizing fathers. I realized too late (in adulthood, just years before his death) the contribution my father had made. He was NOT a nurturer. He was not my playmate. He was not my counsel. It was my mother who did double duty, for which I consider her my hero, today.

But it took me until adulthood that his unspoken lesson on being a man meant going to work, being a part of the community, being of service, and enduring life (childhood poverty on the plantation raising vegetables and livestock for food and sale, and pre/post WWII era racism) with extremely few complaints. I regret him being himself classist and racist*, not for keeping his distance.** Were he alive today (I am his age as I knew him now), I am certain we would be great friends, as I now understand much of what he went through, down to the alleged psychiatric disorders and lifestyle challenges that go along with it like varied performance in school.

*One of my dad's incredibly rare statements on race issues (I can recall just three): one afternoon, out of the blue, I was standing in the living room, and he suddenly said, "Son, whatever you do, don't marry a black woman." I do not know where the hell that came from, because before or since, he mentioned nothing about African-American people, not even concerning sports. Interesting, considering I grew up in the 1970s with a surge in black representation in media and culture.

** In his defense, it remains uncommon in Japanese culture for men to explicitly express their affection. "I love you?" How foreign.

Other than firing up the grill, I recall my dad cooking exactly once about 30 years ago, one night when my mother was so mad, she went to bed after work (her school work took about 12 hours a day, plus weekends and summers). When I say my father was NOT a nurturer, etc., I mean IIRC zero. Even my brother and I did our own cooking starting around age eight if our mother was not around, or too busy.

What did my dad do, other than get a salary? He took care of EVERYTHING outside the house other than my mother's azaleas (which she watered and trimmed while healthy) on a large rural plot (until my brother and I were old enough to join him). At any time while he lived, my family did not really need the professional services of an auto mechanic, roofer, carpenter (even after a devastating hurricane), mason, plumber, electrician (his specialty), trucking company, gardener, tree surgeon, or landscaper, because my dad was old school from the farm and the military, and took pride in knowing how to do it all (he disparaged people who did not know how their own cars operated under the hood). I wish I knew a fifth of what he could do. I need to buy manuals from Home Depot just to build a raised floor and see that supports (2x8) should be spaced 16 inches apart. I had only helped my Dad with concrete slab foundations before. I rent, so I can't do concrete.

*snort* How much work was that, you may ask? How about from after arriving home from work (about 3:30) till sundown, five days a week, and morning to afternoon on Saturdays, just to keep the weeds down without spraying, and it took three to four hours on a riding mower, just to cut the grass?

And when the household inequity did put a strain on their marriage beginning in 1977 (my mother with the master's degree always out-earned my dad, but she was responsible for the home), my mom came up with a list on what their duties should be. The things I can recall him taking on and sticking with were for example, taking us kids to the beach etc., on weekends, and keeping the bathroom REALLY clean. He also took out the trash, because he left for work before sunrise.

I'll also add (my mother is proud of it) that my father was not abusive (spanking by my parents ended by kindergarten), and my despite all the inequities, it was my mother who was THE authority in the house. (She once told my dad to GTFO after he and I went camping out without telling her I wasn't going to church the next day. He left with a duffel bag. She got him back over dinner.) My father (and I) learned it was no use to argue with her decisions.

That's a sweet mustache. :)

My dad had comparable sideburns at one point. That point being my parents' wedding photos. His defense is that it was stylish at the time (as was the striped polyester jumpsuit my mother was wearing in the "leaving for the honeymoon" picture).

I admit, I saw this link via Glenn Sacks:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25085266/from/ET/

When moms criticize, dads back off of baby care
Women's nagging or support dictates men's involvement, research shows
By Melissa Dahl
Health writer
MSNBC
updated 2:39 a.m. HT, Thurs., June. 12, 2008

I disagree with those who blame mothers who expect their men to care for babies in the same manner or with the level of skill that they would themselves (even the "equally shared parenting" mother handed her partner "The List" at first, which he simply tore up in front of her). But I do agree that it is certainly easier for men to let the women take care of the children themselves, if the mothers insist they are doing the best job of it. The man from the MSNBC story for some reason, required four months to learn to quiet his son in the middle of the night, and he had to resist his wife's demand to simply breast feed him.

"He says people point to studies like this as evidence that maybe babies should just be with their mothers. 'But it can be read the other way – that fathers need to try harder and mothers need to help them with that,' Smith says."

Yes, like posters on the Times article said. Men need to learn this. However, it won't just come from books aimed specifically at men, or some men's willingness to share. Mothers also need to let them in, even while the men are still unskilled and unconfident.

It needs to start earlier than that, A male.. This is why feminists have been handing little boys dollies and letting them look after their younger siblings ever since I had pigtails and a play tools.

"It needs to start earlier than that, A male.."

If you are referring to the MSNBC article on fathers lacking in skills and self-confidence: it is the mothers who considered themselves the gatekeepers, and they also need to *allow* men to share. I am sure feminists are doing their best with their own partners and kids - other mothers need to allow their partners to be involved in nurturing as well:

My Japanese wife when I questioned her choice in appliances when we were setting up house after we got married - the Japanese proverb: "The man does not talk in the house" [that is, make decisions regarding its management or child rearing]. But guess what? She expected, and continues to expect me to do what she considers my share - according to her way or her standards, of course. OTOH I do not demand, e.g., that my wife keep the house as clean as I or my mother would, even if the tile floors or toilet bowls are stained brown and dust and cat hair literally covers the house (can't fold laundry and stay clean); that she cook or bake as well (or frequently) as my mother did, or that she earn the same amount I have done since marriage (3-5x her total income).

If you are referring to me not understanding my dad till shortly before he died, that's how 50s era men were brought up, and it would take a hell of a lot for them to change, if ever. I was raised by this born in the 30s couple to believe that is what parenting and childhood were supposed to be like, as well (Grandpa was born in 1899). One of my mother's words of wisdom growing up before, during and after WWII as a Japanese-American, when Hawaii was not even a state, in response to my dissatisfaction with job hunting in the last recession of the early 1990s (i.e., I refused to work for less than $7 per hour, or what I need to buy a home, send kids to college, and save for retirement): "Back then, we did not believe people had the right to be happy." In other words, STFU, son, you don't know what hardship is (25 cents a day picking pineapple 12 hours a day, six days a week from the age of 15; or working three jobs to get herself AND two sisters through college, working under white people and being harassed and called Jap even by people in uniform). She (and my dad through example) taught me not to be so classist. Some here could learn.

Modern people may be understandably disgusted by the concept of such a sit back and take it life (Japanese say "Shikata ga nai" (It can't be helped - but then thousands of years of history like after WWII has shown them they will make it through anything, somehow)). I'd hate that life, too. I simply believed my dad was being a (50s era) dad. Mom certainly was heroic, able to handle career and household full time, achieving an impressive amount in a horrifically racist and sexist era.

Sorry, "we." My mother said, "Back then, we did not believe WE had the right to be happy."

"We" being her 1950s era Japanese-Americans who grew up under martial law and white territorial governors, unable even to vote for representatives and leaders.