last father’s day i believe i remembered my own father. today i’ll talk about my children’s father, my husband, bill. i got very lucky to create and raise children with bill magavern. from the time we first became parents, bill has had a demanding and rewarding career as an environmental advocate in washington, dc and then in sacramento. from the moment our oldest was born, Bill spent as much time as possible at home with our children. he left work at work, was home in the evenings and on weekends except where completely unavoidable. he turned down much more work-related travel than a typical man in his line might.
since i worked for a long time in also in public policy advocacy, i can attest that there is no end to the to do list, the number of opportunities for travel, the extras that can be added on. i was far worse than bill at holding the line on those opportunities, to say the least.
not only did bill spend a lot of time at home when he was working full time, but he also chose to take various breaks in his career to be with the children full or part-time. the first year we lived in sacramento, bill cared for our three and one year olds full-time with only the tiniest bit of childcare, while i worked a crazy hours job in the california legislature.
bill’s world-class fatherhood went far beyond being there for them (although that alone was amazing). at all times, bill was a consistent, loving presence for our children. he articulated clear boundaries to our kids whether around bedtime, allowance, behavior or household guidelines or chores, and he held them. when the children crossed those boundaries, they received a logical consequence almost always meted out with a neutral loving tone, very matter of factly. “you did this, so this much was docked from your allowance. you did this, so you will not be able to do that.”
having been raised in a household where boundaries were few or poorly articulated (no bedtime, no dinnertime, no clear parameters to receive allowance) and where boundary incursions were met by one parent with anger and another parent with loving tolerance, this entire way of being was new to me. in a weird way, bill parented me with these boundaries as well as he unintentionally taught me that it was possible to do so with love. before i saw him do this, i thought the two were mutually exclusive.
of course the hours bill spent with the children weren’t all about consequences, there was lots of fun too, playing ball and frisbee, wrestling, watching tv together, and having discussions about multiple subjects. there may have been some slight complaints from the children about history lessons at dinner time, but they also acknowledge that they learned a lot about the world in this manner.
our children are 23 and 25 now, well grown, responsible caring young adults who are supporting themselves and living on their own. and more importantly, they vote left and cook well. kudos to their most excellent father!
