Get ready to cry a little: Our 11 best L.A. Affairs columns about fathers and family
Fatherhood comes in many different forms. Fatherhood means stepping up and owning up to your mistakes and being better the next time around. Those are a few of the lessons learned the hard way and shared over the years in our L.A. Affairs column.
In honor of Father’s Day — it’s Sunday, so there’s still time to get a gift! — we pored over the hundreds of columns we’ve published and found 12 of our favorite pieces about fatherhood and family. Many will make you laugh or want to call or hug your dad or your kid. Some will make you cry.
Among them: a column about a cocky lawyer who swore that marriage and kids were the last things on his mind, and he had no problem telling all his dates that (we won’t spoil it by telling you what happened next); and the story about a music teacher who happily filled the void for a young student who desperately needed a father figure in her life.
And there’s the poignant piece about a young man who stared out the window while commuting to work on a bus each day, wondering about how to take those next few steps into manhood — and fatherhood: “I had this image in my head of what a husband should be. Unsurprisingly, he looked a lot like my dad: He had a mustache, a house and — importantly — a career. I didn’t have any of that. So how could I be a husband if I wasn’t that man?”
Some of these columns made an appearance in our first-ever book, “L.A. Affairs: 65 True Stories of Nightmare Dates, Love at First Sight, Heartbreak & Happily Ever Afters in Southern California,” which would also make a fine Father’s Day gift. We hope you enjoy them.
- 1
Sitting with my 96-year-old dad, and my partner, Dennis, I’d look back and forth between the two of them and see love past, present and future.
- 2
A therapist explained that violent traumas can make your inner emotions flare. All your conflicts, even those years old and long-buried. And so I confessed it all. All my struggles. And this time, with the therapist’s help, I recognized that I was a woman.
- 3
I had this image in my head of what a husband should be. Unsurprisingly, he looked a lot like my dad: He had a mustache, a house and — importantly — a career. I didn’t have any of that.
- 4
Like so many baby boomers I know, I grew up in a home with an absent father. I saw him only a few minutes each day and rarely on the weekends. There were no holidays shared together, no father-daughter nights out, no time spent chatting. He was just too busy, always working.
- 5
It was a rare morning when my wife Wendy and I were enjoying a full house. Both our adult sons were home for the weekend. They were still a little groggy when I handed them each a strong, spicy Bloody Mary. As we were taking our first sips I looked at them and casually said, “Did I ever tell you I was adopted?”
- 6
We kept running into each other at church though. One month, as I was setting up a table for a church bake sale, I looked up and saw him walking my way with a plate of homemade cookies. Another volunteer remarked to me, “The new guy is so cute.” I thought to myself, “And he bakes.”
- 7
I wanted badly to marry and settle down, but it never seemed to work out. Then someone suggested that a young widow might be a perfect match for me. I know this sounds like I was being opportunistic, but look at it from my point of view: I was a man who had tried seemingly everything else in my quest to marry and finally settle down.
- 8
I’d decided to have a baby on my own, and planned to spend the next year saving and strategizing. I also continued dating. When the topic of children came up, I was straightforward about my plans. Having given up on finding romantic love, I no longer had any use for dating rules about playing it cool. The men responded with encouragement and questions but never called for a second date. Fair enough.
- 9
I told my dates upfront: I’m in it for the fun, not the long-term.
- 10
I’d dated a guy for eight years before he proposed — and then called off the wedding, saying he’d moved too quickly. I had to start all over again. I was nearing 30, and I hadn’t dated since I was 18. I needed to learn all the new dating rules, but my No. 1 rule was that he had to be Jewish.
- 11
The smart thing would have been to finish school, raise this baby as best we could and decide at a later time if we were going to make the commitment to be with each other. But, of course, that’s not what we did. We didn’t really plan to wed on the day that we did, we were just filling out the paperwork to get the license. The clerk asked if we were getting married too, and without much thought, we said yes.
- 12
When I came out to my father, he cursed me. I considered his words as if they were a fortune teller’s: “Mijo, you’re going to have a very lonely life.”
