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Read other letters about this article
"And kind old King George sent Mother a note when he heard that Father was gone.
It was, as I recall, in a form of a scroll, with gold leaf and all.
And I found it one day in a drawer of old photographs, hidden away.
And my eyes still grow damp to remember, His Majesty signed with his own rubber stamp."
Reading Rose's piece on fatherhood proved to be both profoundly disturbing and depressing. My heart aches for his unfortunate sons, who will sense their father's overwhelmingly condescending and detached assessment of their young lives, wishes, hopes, and thoughts. I sympathize with the "10 or 20" years younger wife who is coldly described in this scenario as a hysterical caricature. Rose, in his raging arrogance, writes as though he alone has an inner life. Must this letter have been inflicted upon us, especially on this holiday? If it missed the attention of the editors of Salon, Rose's disaffected stance is entirely cliched. There are millions of patronizing, emotionally absent fathers. The world is brimming with them.
I quote the lyrics of Roger Waters (above) as a counterpoint to the most tragic aspect of this letter: a father's callous indifference to the most profound needs of his sons. Rose is an absent father, not physically, but he is removed by both his age and by his conceit. And his sons will feel this. Children ache for the approval of their fathers and they feel the sharp pain of a father's absence or indifference for their entire lives. Waters's great opus The Wall was inspired by the pain Waters felt at growing up without a father (his father was killed in World War II). The theme is well-represented in literature: Shakespeare's great, late play King Lear shows what violence a father's arrogance can wreak on his own life as well as the lives of his children. I am deeply saddened by Rose's alarmingly complacent disregard for the emotional needs of the young human beings he helped bring into the world.
