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by Tony Chen

I've been meeting up with one of my buds, Greg, every other week for lunch.  Despite the fact that he's 10 years younger than me, the guy is mature beyond his years.  He's just one of those guys who I know will do something great with his life.

After catching up on his latest crush, work woes, and the like, inevitably, our conversation always seems to go back to our parents, and without doubt, we start talking about "the talk."  Do you know the one?  No, not the birds/bees talk, but that first man-to-man talk with our dad.  Over the past few weeks, Greg has been mustering up the courage to share some heavy stuff with his dad.  There's baggage to be cleared, there's sins to be forgiven, there's words of affirmation to be spoken, and there's also gratitude to be expressed.  I feel for the kid because he so wants to prove to his dad that he's worthy of daddy's love.  I know too many people who feel that way, even after their fathers have passed away.  What is it about father figure approval that runs so deep? 

I remember my first man-to-man talk.  It was the first time where I had enough courage to tell my dad exactly how I felt about how he treated me and my sister - both positive and negative.  Of course, on that particular day, we were in the middle of a "family meeting" fight, so we talked more on the negative.  Amazingly, something about my dad changed that day as he took those words to heart.  Also for me, my perspective of the world changed forever, too.  I finally realized that my dad's a growing, dynamic, changing person too -- after all, he was learning how to parent just as I was learning how to be his kid.  My dad was human after all.

Now that I have my own son, I'm seeing a lot of my dad in me (yeah, pretty scary, right?).  For the positive areas, I've subconsciously imitated my dad.  For the areas I didn't like, I've changed (or maybe even overcompensated) my parenting approach.  I sometimes imagine what it will be like when my son, maybe 20 years from now, has his man-to-man talk with his old man.  What will be said?  What will be bottled inside him for so long that he will scream it?  Or will he essentially take it out on me on the basketball court, dunking over my middle-age pile of fat and bones?  Will it be "thanks for nothing" or "thanks for everything?"  Or better yet, maybe our father/son relationship will be so that we'll be talking all the time ... maybe there won't be a need for the "the talk" at all.