Overdone Virtues

What some people see as my father’s strongest virtues may actually have been his greatest faults.

If anyone asks me who I admire most, who had the greatest influence on me, or who is my hero, I always say “Daddy.” I loved and respected him and have tried to model myself on him, mostly. But he was as human as the rest of us.

I was reminded of that recently as we have been working through some family emergencies and I realized that my brothers and I all share some of Daddy’s weaknesses.

Have you ever heard the phrase, “generous to a fault”? Daddy was always careful with his money, but if anyone needed help, he was the first one there. And that’s the problem.

I was in college before I recognized that Daddy was quick to give but slow to take. He rarely accepted invitations to dinner because he didn’t want to put anyone out. On one of those occasions, I told him that the parishioners probably enjoyed having him over, and I actually said he was being selfish by depriving others of the opportunity to do something nice for him. He accepted my point, but I doubt that it made much difference in the long run.

Then there was Daddy’s sense of responsibility. At our cousins’ reunion last summer, people were talking about how Daddy worked long hours because he felt responsible for his parents. Again, though, I wonder if his sense of responsibility deprived his siblings of the opportunity to help.

Maybe Daddy was looking for perfection, or maybe he just wanted to feel in control of the situation. Either way, he wasn’t willing to let somebody else take on a job that he believed he (or his children) could do better, even if it was something as insignificant as folding bulletins. In the days before automatic folding machines, he took that task away from the elders and gave it to us because we got the edges even. I have fond memories of folding bulletins on Saturday evenings, but it illustrates Daddy’s inability to give up control.

All three of Daddy’s children inherited his over-developed sense of responsibility and need to be in control. Fortunately, I recognize it and try—not always successfully—to keep it in check. I’m better at delegating than I used to be and am not quite as quick to take a job back when it doesn’t meet my high standards.

I also work at compromising with others who share my need to be in control. Unfortunately, it takes two to compromise, so sometimes I take a different route. To misuse a cliché, I make a conscious choice not to rock the boat unless that’s the only way to keep it from capsizing. No, I’m not always successful, but I attempt to pick my battles and carefully choose when to stand up and when to stay seated. Or, in some situations, I simply stay out of the boat.

Daddy wasn’t perfect, and neither am I.

But I try not to let my virtues become faults.