Time was, and not all that long ago, father brought home the bacon, and mother (while rocking the cradle) cooked it in the pan. But neither fathers nor mothers are who they once were. As new doors opened for women, men’s lives changed as well.

            Some of my close friends are coming for brunch on Father's Day to talk about our fathers, the part they played in who we became, how they influenced our relationships with our partners, our children and authority figures. Did we strive to perpetuate what we thought positive, and mindfully try to avoid repeating the negative? Were we successful?

            The three fathers in my life were my husband’s, mine, and of course, Len as a father.

             Len faced adversity many times, but I only witnessed his unrestrained tears at the funeral of his father, a man of Norwegian heritage, usually stern of face. He’d grown up poor with a commanding work ethic, an intellectual with only an eighth grade education. In the years I knew him, he was an electrician for the railroad and even in his sixties labored outside in Chicago’s cruel winter temperatures. Devoted and loyal to his wife and family, but undemonstrative, he was a man of few words and those often critical. A self-taught pianist, photographer and grower of exquisite flowers, in these endeavors he expressed pleasure and a sensuality that otherwise, even with close family members, seemed absent. I always thought of him as trapped, inside himself.

             His son's tearful regret was never having told his father he loved him.

             With his own children, Len was a tender and affectionate father when they were young. He fed, bathed and got them to bed three nights a week for four years, while I attended evening law school classes at Chase. Later, as the 1970s approached, he struggled to adjust to the social turmoil: his sons’ hair length, raucous protests on the University campus and sexual mores turned upside down. Tensions rose in our family, especially with our adolescent sons. Len’s anger was visible, but repressed. He was, in a sense, at war with himself, believing in two opposite truths, the standards with which he was raised and the new freedoms unfolding.

            Years later, in our children’s early adulthood, Len purposely sought to reestablish closeness. He took each of them, alone, on canoeing treks into the wilderness or on cross-country flights in his small plane, resolved to speak of and assure the parental love and approval he had so longed for, and wanting to be known for who he was in the present.

             My very different experience, but also regret, is not having come to know my father better. I asked too few questions. Self-absorbed as an adolescent and then preoccupied with my own growing family and developing career, there were seldom private moments for intimate conversations when we visited. My mother was ever present, her persona more vivid. As a young teenager, my father traveled to America on his own to join other family members escaping the pogroms in Russia. He arrived speaking no English, but ten years later earned a law degree at N.Y.U. Off to work early and returning late during the depression years, and even thereafter, most of my childhood memories of him are indistinct, just of a kind and quiet presence, often humming some unrecognizable tune. When at home, I remember him reading, away from the center of activity. My parent's love for each other seemed to me ever present, in the way they spoke and often touched. Troubling words either went unsaid or more likely were voiced behind closed doors.

              I never told my father I loved him, but for that I have no regret, only gratitude for our having been so secure in our love for each other. His approval of me was evident in the warmth of his smile each time we met, even if unspoken.

              Some of my friends tell of fathers who were autocratic, disapproving, and even cruel. Today I watch them with their loved ones, and witness tenderness, devotion and respect. I marvel at how they have reversed the tide, and wonder if their fathers were trapped, inside themselves.

               But how many of us think we know our father as well as we know our mother?