In My Father’s Shoes

| By: Committee for Children

This week's blog entry is written by Staff Writer Angela Fountas.

While I was growing up, I frequently clashed with my dad, a Greek immigrant, who had different ideas about the how I should live my life. We clashed over clothing (I babysat so I could buy my own blue jeans), family versus friends (I liked to hang out a lot with my girlfriends), and what I wanted to be when I grew up (which fell into the humanities camp). Forget about dating. Too bad schools didn’t teach SEL skills back in the day so that the two of us would have had more skills to see each other’s points of view.

Our clashes reached crisis mode when he told me he wouldn’t be able to pay for my first year of college because I wanted to be an English major, and instead he was going to pay for my sister’s second year of college because she was taking business classes. Like many immigrants, my dad only considered practical choices, such as accountant, doctor, and dentist, as viable career paths.

One summer during undergraduate school, I went to Greece for two months to stay with my grandmother. I had visited my dad’s village as a young girl, but returning during my young adult years really opened my eyes. Some days in the village I felt like I was literally walking in his shoes, down the dusty streets, past the goats and gardens; riding on a tractor through the olive fields; going to the same relatives’ home every day for coffee after the midday nap.

In the village, we mainly socialized with other family members; both men’s work and women’s work revolved around the prosperity of the household; people my age lived at home, and if any of them were in relationships, it was a secret. I wasn’t even allowed to mention my own boyfriend, whom I would soon be joining in Germany, and I was twenty-five at the time.

That summer, I was able to see the world through my father’s eyes. I realized that my dad’s worldview came from life in the village, and I was able to understand where he was coming from and how he viewed my world. If I had learned perspective-taking and empathy skills as a teenager, my dad and I may have gotten along as well then as we did after my stay in the village and have ever since.