Healthy Enough to Fight: A Father’s Day Reflection
Guest Post by Shai Wise: Father of 4, Trans Former Chaplain and Future Rabbi
This beautiful reflection comes to us from my dear friend Shai, whom I’ve known since college. Although we haven’t spent much time together in person since those early years, despite living in the same city for a while and tracking each other’s lives over social media, we’ve stayed connected across time and distance.
I invited Shai to contribute to this project because I’ve admired his parenting for years through his thoughtful, honest posts online. I know him to be wise, compassionate, and deeply intentional in how he shows up for his kids. I’m honored to share his words here.
Each year for Fathers Day I ask my kids for the same gift: a day without fighting. That laugh, make a show of how that’s impossible and some years even bargain to see if they can do something, anything, else. It’s as much a tradition as the day itself. After all with two 16 year olds, an 11 year old and an 8 year old the chances of a whole day where no kids bicker is about as likely as world peace.
And this year I asked for the same thing. Except it’s a different sort of year. This Father’s Day comes after spending months as such a regular at our local Children’s hospital with one of my children, that they have a favorite phlebotomist at the lab, and the people who check in, know who we are when we walk up to the desk. It’s been a year of remembering what a gift the kids are and the privilege of children healthy enough to fight. This year as we approach Fathers Day it is with the memory of when my oldest was finally feeling up to fighting with her siblings.
So this year, I almost didn’t ask for the unattainable gift of a day without the kids fighting. But I did. Partly because as a father I’m trying to get a vision of what it might be like when they’re older. When they somehow have learned to navigate space together. But even more, I asked for it because, in a year that has been anything but normal this traditional request feels like it gives of the glimpse of normalcy we’re hoping for - and besides maybe, just maybe this year will be the year? And if not the raised voices of my children simply remind me - they are healthy enough to fight.