Through hard times and good, Dad is in your corner

I am just going to say it: my teenage years were not good. Fueled by fire and fury, I rebelled against everything I could, even to my own detriment. I ignored my schoolwork and lived a life driven by big dreams but small effort.

That rebellion extended to my relationship with my father. He lamented my poor grades in school, and I viewed him as a hypocrite because his high school grades were not much better than mine. If he told me to study more, I would invariably study less. I sat in summer school while my friends went to baseball games. I eventually squeaked out of high school.

I do not recount this with any sense of pride. Quite the opposite, really. It was a foolish exercise in futility.

I thankfully managed to turn my life around. In my early twenties, things started to click. I finally earned my two-year degree after several aimless years. Then, at a four-year university, I excelled. Eventually, I attended some of the best schools in the country, including Duke and Notre Dame. Today I hold two graduate degrees, two law degrees, and serve the community as a circuit court judge. The Illinois State Crime Commission even has honored me as the "Judge of the Year."

At age 32, I became a father. I learned to deal with the worries and responsibilities commonly associated with fatherhood. But I also realized something about what I previously considered to be parental hypocrisy. When I tuned out my dad’s seemingly worthless lectures about grades and life in general, I missed out on a larger message: that encouraging your son to avoid your mistakes is not hypocrisy. It’s fatherhood.

Navigating the complexities of father-son dynamics demands an adept balancing act of nuanced and occasionally conflicting ideologies. For example, when my oldest son was bullied at school, I told him to walk away if he could. But I also told him that sometimes the only way to stop a bully is to stand up to them. When he went away to college, I asked him not to drink. But if he decided to drink, he should not drive. So how should a father react when his young son is disciplined at school for fighting a bully? Or when his college-aged son asks for Uber money because he cannot drive home? Should the reaction be disappointment? Or proud approval?

Fatherhood is an onion of many layers. Often, effective parenting does not involve a clear right answer with black-and-white issues. Rather, parenting forces us to view the world in endless shades of gray. It requires acknowledgment that we do not have all the answers. It is angrily scolding your son for saying something wildly inappropriate while, simultaneously, turning your head as you struggle to restrain your laughter.

At age 53, I understand the difficult positions my dad encountered. He must have been exhausted trying get through to a headstrong young man who believed he understood the world better than his father.

It is no coincidence that as I steered my life's course, I discovered that my father had been my copilot all along. He offered encouragement through my lowest moments and reveled in my triumphs. And, his own academic endeavors in his early fifties — graduating with distinction and a dual major from Lewis University in 1999 — left an indelible impression on me.

I sometimes chuckle today at my dad’s frustrations with the technological complexity of the world. I atone for my teenage sins by programming his remote control and fixing his iPhone. To be sure, he is an analog man in a digital world. Yet, when it comes to the important stuff, it is increasingly clear to me that he gets it. I hope to get it someday, too.

If you are blessed to be able to phone or visit your dad today, I urge you to do it. Let him know that you had to grow up to realize how much he knows and how smart he is — even when you thought he was never in your corner.

Let him know that you are there for him, too. We may not have many more years to say that to the most important man in our lives.

• John Anderson, a father of three, is a Circuit Court judge in the 12th Judicial Circuit Court of Will County.