When parents choose to work late, or travel a lot, they tend to neglect their children and the child must go elsewhere to find this love --

    My father is not a social person.  Nor does he offer information freely, so I have to pry an answer out of his head in order to quench my thirst for knowledge.  For this reason, I do not know many of the details of my fatherís life before he had me.  This is not to say that I do not know my father.  Ever since high school, when I started recognizing people and their different personalities, and especially in college, where I would go long periods of being completely removed from my father and then long periods of being completely absorbed in his presence, I feel that I have gained a grasp on his personality.  From that, I feel my knowledge of my father comes from being able to predict his actions in any given situation.  For example, I know that he will probably be more hurt than angry if I got in some disciplinary trouble with Marquette or MPD, and wouldnít really punish me.  In contrast to this, my father would take much more severe action if I was doing poorly in a class, and would not let up until he was certain that I had learned the material.  This kind of knowledge that I have of my father is more valuable than the history-book knowledge where you know all the events of someoneís life in determining how well you ìknowî someone.

    What I do know about my fatherís past is that the most important thing in his life until he had a family was education.  This focus on education came from his mother, who was a teacher and one of the very few college-educated women of her time, and from his father, a doctor.  Ranked second at his high-school graduation, my father continued this family tradition by attending MIT, where he majored in Physics and Philosophy, and the University of Chicago, where he received his MBA in finance along with a CPA certificate.  Needless to say I have received countless ìwhatever happened to you?î  comments.  Despite his impressive list of accomplishments, the most important thing that I learned about my fatherís college career was that he lived in a single dorm room for the last three years as an undergraduate; and that he hated his freshman year roommate because he ìwas always partying.î  I feel that same smile creep across my face when I think how my father would react to the sheer madness that sometimes goes on in my house in Milwaukee.  My father rarely attends social parties.  When he was forced to attend parties that my school held, he remained aloof and distant.  He really does not have any friends, except an older man with whom he religiously plays tennis on Sundays, and whose existence is doubtful since no member of my family has met him.  My father does not see the importance of ìchatting,î and our conversations always have a purpose. Once that purpose is accomplished, the conversation is over.

    Since my father is not a social person, he does not suffer from any of the typical ìsocial problems,î such as drinking or fighting (in fact, I do not recall ever hearing him curse), but I feel that his decision to completely tune himself out of popular culture and socializing has left him without an understanding of the personalities around him, and therefore he cannot really relate to them.  He can explain the intricacies of current topics such as the stock market or stem-cell research, but he was never able to explain to me the ìfacts of life.î  Because of this, I never really felt comfortable talking to him about things that were not quantifiable, and I never felt a strong connection with him, other than that ìunconditional loveî that one has for both his parents.  My father is not my friend.  Instead, he is more of an infallible authority figure.  He is someone whose knowledge is so great that Iíll travel 100 miles to Chicago for help studying accounting when my professor is only a couple of blocks away.  My father also keeps me from acting too out of control because my fear of disappointing him overcomes any desire I might have to do something obtuse.
The verb ìisolateî is defined in the American Heritage Dictionary as, ìto separate from a group or whole and set apart.î  Most people think of someone being ìisolatedî as a very depressing and sympathetic person who, because of some physical or personality characteristic, has been kicked to the outskirts of society and left to live out their existence alone and unhappy as they search for a way to fill the social void that now exists.  Age, wealth, physical appearance, beliefs, nationality, race, occupation, language, sex, etc, are some reasons why isolation occurs.  People are isolated because they donít fit a certain image of that the group is trying to present to others through their acquaintances.  My father is not isolated for this reason.  Nor is his story sympathetic.  I think my father chose to isolate himself from popular culture for the sole reason that he got more joy out of learning then he did socializing.  Still I feel that his isolation limited both him and me.

    I remember fidgeting on my living room floor as a child with the anxious expression of a kid who is about to open his presents on Christmas Day.  This restlessness occurred every weekday as, after an intense rush to finish my homework (which was thoroughly checked after dinner), I waited for my father to return home from work.  This feeling was followed by sheer jubilation once my Dad got home.  This was because my Dad devoted his evenings to my brothers and me, and if he came home at a decent hour we were guaranteed a game or two of baseball, soccer, or football that evening.  I remember once, that my mother told me that my father passed on more responsibility in his job, which in so many words meant a higher salary, so that he would be able to get off at five every night and spend the evening with my brothers and me.

    I also remember having to make every friend I ever had.  My father, while he devoted much of his time to us, did not introduce me to many other kids my age.  This was not really a problem when I was young, but when I got to be about 12, I realized that I didnít have any good friends.  Our first social contacts are made when our parents throw us into the same play area with their friendsí children while they socialize, and I never had this opportunity.  While everyone else was having sleepovers, I was still off with my two brothers playing sports. Needless to say, unless there was a formal invitation, I did not do anything with anyone other than my brothers.  My desire to make friends intensified when I realized how bored I was after school, and that I was missing out on events that seemed fun to me.
 
    In high school, I made a determined effort to socialize more and meet different people.  While it was hard at first, I was able to pick and choose my friends based on whether or not I liked them, instead of just hanging around with the kids from my neighborhood.  By junior year, once everyone had a driverís license so they didnít have to hang out in their neighborhood, I had formed a tight social circle of my own based off of peopleís personalities.

    When parents choose to work late, or travel a lot, they tend to neglect their children and the child must go elsewhere to find this love.  My father, on the other hand, made it a point to give me attention in my youth, but neglected me from socializing at large.  While this stemmed from his social awkwardness, the effect on me was that I had trouble making friends, and had to make a conscious effort not to give up and focus on athletics and homework.  Because of this, I was more susceptible to peer pressure, and doing things that I didnít want to in order to gain popularity.  Since I was always running sprints to succeed in basketball, and studying all night to do well on an exam, it made sense for me to have to drink in high school in order to gain friends.  I viewed socializing the way that I viewed any other thing that I wanted to accomplish; however I was not as proud of my ìhard workî in this area and instead of bragging about it, I learned to accept it as a necessary task to accomplish my goal.

    I do not completely blame my father for this, but I feel that communication within families is very important.  Talking about a reality such as drug use, teenage pregnancy, or violence, while uncomfortable, is the best defense to keep them from occurring.  I never had any of these talks with my parents, and still wouldnít feel comfortable bringing up the topic.  Luckily, I think that I am old enough to realize the effect that something has on my life in the long run. But in high school my dilemma was making friends and I was very lucky not to have anything too serious happen to me.

    I should not be critical of my Dad, since he was my biggest fan and never questioned my lifestyle.  He has put me through the best schools and sacrificed much to give me the things that I felt I needed.  Unlike my father, I took to sports instead of books as a kid, and he attended almost every baseball and basketball game I participated in.  He even was an assistant coach on my basketball team, a game that he knew very little about until I showed an interest.  He did not do much coaching but rather stuck to what he knew, which was keeping the books, a rarity in grade-school basketball.  I do remember once, when the head coach was sick, he had to take over and the only thing he made sure of was that everyone got to play.  I think we won in spite of that.

    I do find some irony in my fatherís lack of social skills; his inability to keep up with fashions has kept him from buying anything other than socks and underwear for as long as Iíve been around.  Itís funny how everyone wants to be ìdifferentî and in doing so they only change for the same.  My father has accomplished what many of these youths fail at by not paying any attention to styles and wearing the same clothes since the seventies.  Sometimes, accidentally of course, his clothes will fall back into style and I will find myself ditching my store bought clothes and delving into my fatherís 30-year-old closet.

    In the end, I would definitely raise my kids differently, but I do feel that my father did an amazing job with me.  In a time when all I hear about is how adolescents from my generation are socially depressed and concerned with their physical characteristics because they think everyone does not like them, I find myself very confident in the friends I have, and if they did not like me, I would be unafraid to make new ones.  I think this confidence stems from having to make friends without my parentsí help.  So with every friendly email I send my father that gets sent back proofread with all grammatical errors fixed and comments such as ìdonít be too lazy to capitalize,î and every casual comment that I make that he quickly corrects in ìgoodî English, I realize that now I find humor in my fatherís lack of social skills.  Sometimes, although I shudder at the thought, I find myself envying his total contentment with not having anyone other than his immediate family and one friend to do something with.  I do not sympathize for him since he is perfectly happy and would not have it any other way.  I am just curious as to how he does it, I wonder what it is like to live like him.  Despite all this, I am very grateful for all that he has sacrificed ñ the amount I am just beginning to realize.  I will never be completely satisfied with the way that I was raised ñ and I think everyone critiques their growing up experiences and plans to raise their children differently based on it.  But I am satisfied with the way that I turned out, and looking back, I am not so sure that I would change as much as Iíd like to think.