“Compliments are so utterly wasted unless they’re passed on,” Richard Kneeley says in Margaret Truman’s book, “Murder at the FBI.”
When was the last time you gave someone a compliment? Did it hurt you? Did you feel better? People, particularly dads, find it difficult sharing good thoughts, particularly with their sons. Why? I don’t know. Maybe it’s because dads feel inadequate or need to keep the upper hand. Maybe, just maybe some feel they’ve failed in some way, when their sons do something better than they did. Get over it. And it simply could be that society has neglected how important we are. Again, men, get over it. Get over it and help each other by encouraging each other.
And mothers? Some moms similarly envy their daughters, but that’s not my bag, because it’s up to me to deal with my own demons, as I seek to encourage my sons to be better than I am. I suggest that as I follow my own medicine others of you consider the same.
So I give my sons compliments, but unfortunately, it seems they generally only remember my criticism. I try to tell them each day I love them, if only in something special I try to do for them. I try to do the same for their mother. But for them, I’ve started releasing them to make more of their choices, particularly my older son, allowing him to be accountable to his worse critic: himself.
Men have a tendency to be harder on ourselves than anybody else does. We feel we can’t make mistakes; have to be right; and must not show pain. We’d have a root canal without anesthesia if it were allowed; some of us would, rather than admit something hurt.
Rather than admit we’re not perfect. We get lost. We hurt. We go through pits of depression that is part of the cycle as we age, but again, rather than admit this, we break apart. Our families get destroyed. Our health suffers simple because we don’t know how to admit it’s okay to ask for help. And the sooner we accept the fact we don’t know something, the sooner we can learn. The sooner we let people know we need directions, even if it means we have to turn around, the sooner we’ll get where we want to go. And the sooner we let the world know we can be hurt, maybe the world will stop pushing us too hard. It’s that simple.
Some time we are on the right track, and it is incumbent on those around us to encourage us, to make sure we know the path we’re on is the correct one. Because, whether we want to accept it or not, our sons will be following and mirroring our actions, either in protest or affirmation. We men, set the stage, and dads, when we do something wrong, admit it, and try to encourage our children to not repeat our mistakes.
I tell my sons I’m just a conductor on a train they’ll eventually own. There will be many stops along the way where I’ll stop to pick one of them up, or drop one of them off. But as they get older, it becomes their choice whether the route I’m taking is the route for them. It pains me, when sometime I rush in the wrong direction, and they’re on that train with me. So when I insist the train stops; staying becomes their choice. It might not be the right path for me at that moment, but it might be the correct path for one or both of them. Only the man within knows this, and I have to trust them, trust myself that I’d done the best I could, compliment them as they accept the rite of passage I have to yield to them.
I try to share the truth, as I know it, with my sons. I tell them about my mistakes, and how that has affected me, and others. I tell them about my failures, and how I managed to continue. They’ve experienced my failures, whether a job I wanted or a project that wasn’t approved. I’ve not been silent with my frustrations, failures or foolhardy efforts to make a difference. Whether it was a relationship that didn’t work, a job I didn’t get, or an impasse I had with a project I was working on. I share what I learned, and hope they can map their own routes based on my honesty
I’ve improved on being truthful, even when it hurts. You know men. You’ve done something you know the wife is going to get bent out of shape about, regardless of what time of the month it is, and we hold back bits of information. Well, they’ve seen me admit I was wrong, and how that sucks the wind out of mom’s wrath. Their mom and I haven’t always agreed, but they realize despite the conflict, they can count on the two of us seeing our job of raising them to the finish, together.
Both boys have adopted my unyielding fervor to keep promises. They will work my last nerve to get a promise from me, on something important to them, because they know it’s a code I live by. They too promise discreetly, and follow this code religiously. It’s a compliment I’ve passed on to them, and hopefully they’ll keep, as they become men…and have children. And most of all, not think I wasted my time on uplifting them when they were right, chiding them when they disappointed me, and asking forgiveness when I disappointed them.
Last week I quoted from the movie “16 Blocks” and talked about facing destiny. “When a man faces his destiny…destiny” does end and the man “becomes the man that he really is," Eddie tells Jack in the movie "16 Blocks." It’s all part of becoming a man. That’s what this column is all about. Next week I’ll talk about rituals and how important they are and how to modify them to suit today’s different setups. In the meantime, accept the responsibility of being man enough to stand up and compliment each other, especially our sons as we continue to groom them from men to fathers.
Archie Wortham lives with his wife, Suzan of 23 years, and their two sons Myles (12), and Jeremy (16) in Universal City, Texas, a suburb of San Antonio. Retired from the military in 1996, for nine years he wrote a dad's column originally called "Jeremy's Dad," then called "Jeremyles' Dad," named after both his sons. He now writes a column in San Antonio called "Men 2 Fathers." Archie also maintains the Fatherhood site, you may contact him by email at
