Bill Clinton: Father of the Year?!

The 72^nd annual Father of the Year awards were presented this past Tuesday (June 11) at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City by the National Father’s Day Committee, an entity of the Father’s Day/Mother’s Day Council. Former President Bill Clinton was one of the recipients.

I first read about Clinton’s selection as “father of the year” back in January, and I was somewhat surprised to hear of his selection. Perhaps some of you, though, tend to agree with the two senior fellows of the Family Research Council, an organization founded by James Dobson in 1981, who wrote that Clinton was “unbelievably” chosen and that it was a “misdirected award.”

Actually, Clinton is just one of this year’s recipients, and some of you Republicans may be glad to know that Dan Quayle was one of the recipients in 1989 and Ronald Reagan was an awardee in 1957.

More than politicians, though, through the years there seems to have been a disproportionate number of sports celebrities chosen—such as Shaq O’Neal, the basketball superstar, last year.

Certainly Clinton’s personal indiscretions before, during, and after (?) his years in the White House are certainly not what one would expect from someone named “father of the year.” There is no way of knowing how those indiscretions negatively impacted the life of Chelsea, now 33, Bill and Hillary’s only child.

But Chelsea made a surprise appearance at Tuesday’s event and presented the award to her father. “Every day he’s my dad, and I don’t need an award to tell me he’s the best that I could have hoped for,” she said. “But I’m grateful he’s getting the recognition that I, of course, his unapologetically biased daughter, think he’s always deserved.” 

And Clinton said he received a text message from Hillary saying, “Congratulations. I think you deserve this.”

Back in January when the Council announced Clinton’s selection, they highlighted Clinton's philanthropy through the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative—as well as his work as the U.N. Special Envoy for Haiti. Exemplary fathers, they seem to imply, do more than care for just their own children.

What Clinton has done since he left the White House is considerably more praiseworthy than what we have seen from the most recent ex-president, who has been more of an exemplary father along traditional lines of thought. (Does he really spend time painting his feet in the bathtub?!)

According to the website of the Father’s Day/Mother’s Day Council, “The objective of this 72 year-old program [to present the Father of the Year awards] is to enhance the meaning of Father’s Day—Sunday, June 16, 2013—and encourage universal observance.”

Some of us have only memories of our fathers, as they have passed on. (My father, whom I remember with great respect and appreciation, died nearly six years ago.) Most of you will be able to honor your father directly tomorrow, in person or by telephone.

And those of us who are fathers can use this time to reflect on how we can be better fathers—for our own children and for the children of the world. Perhaps “father of the year” Bill Clinton is an example for us to emulate because of not just what he has done for Chelsea but primarily what he has done for so many children (and adults) through the Clinton Foundation and the activities of the Clinton Global Initiative.

Nurturing Fathers

Father’s Day, as you know, will be celebrated this Sunday, June 19.

For maybe understandable reasons, Father’s Day is not nearly as popular as Mother’s Day, and its observance is much more recent. It was not until 1966 that President Johnson issued the first presidential proclamation honoring fathers, designating the third Sunday in June as Father’s Day. It was six years later that President Nixon signed it into law as a permanent national observance.

In this country Father’s Day was first proposed in 1910, but in the early years, even in the 1920s, there was sometimes laughter when observance of such a day was mentioned. There were several reasons for such a response, but one seems to have been that many fathers were not highly involved in the nurture of their children.

Those who raise cattle or horses are well acquainted with the importance of having a good sire for their calves or colts. For good offspring, they know there must be a good bull (or “he cow” as June’s neighbor used to say) or stallion (studhorse).

In registering animals, information about the sire is listed. But the sire is not usually referred to as the father. According to the dictionary, a father is “a man who has begotten a child.” And it is generally assumed that such a man, along with the child’s mother, has the responsibility for the physical, psychological, and spiritual well-being of the child.

Unfortunately, it seems that many men today have become sires, but not fathers in the full sense of the word.

Former Reagan Education Secretary William J. Bennett was one of the speakers I heard at the conference I wrote about on June 5. He talked about “the man problem in American society,” and he lamented, “Men are not marrying, not making the commitments in the way they used to.”

Later this year Bennett’s new 560-page book, The Book of Man: Who Are Men, What Should Men Be, What Should Men Do? will be published. In it I hope he deals helpfully with the importance of men being good fathers. (I will likely disagree with some of his conservative ideas about the relationship of men and women, though.)

The country needs men who will make commitments to help rear children, beginning with the ones they sire. The number of unwed mothers in the U.S. has risen dramatically in recent decades. Nationwide, now more than 40% of the children born have an unwed mother. Some of these, thankfully, do have a father who helps with the demanding task of rearing them. Sadly, many don’t.

You fathers who read this likely have been, and are, good, nurturing fathers, that is, fathers who nurture your children physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

But all of us, men and women alike, probably need to do more to nurture the young men around us toward becoming more responsible fathers. Unfortunately, in American society now there are too many men who are just sires, not fathers in the true sense of the word.