Friday Night Fights

A fond memory of mine centers arounf Friday Night Fights. It was one of the few opportunities I had to spend some one-on-one time with my adopted father. He really was more like a grandfather rather than a father because he was thirty years older than my adopted mother. I don't think he felt comfortable around girls. But I found a way to get closer to him by sharing a love for prize fighting. Now back in the late 50's TV was black and white, there were only two channels to watch, and the screen was small, often rolling horizontally, with little to add glitz and glamor.

Every Friday night, my father would watch Friday Night Fights. He would let me choose white pants or black pants (the "color" being worn by each fighter). It was our special time together. Sometimes the fights were brutal and blood flowed freely. There was rarely a stop called due to injury. The fight went on until somone could not get up or the scheduled number of rounds were completed. Sometimes the brutality got to me, but I never said a word because this time exclusively with my father was too important to me for me to bail out. I enjoyed everything about Friday Night Fights. The Pabst Blue Ribbon commercials, the ring girls who would circle inside the ring carrying a placard high above their heads to show what round it was, even the monotonous off-key sound of the bell calling the fighters back to another round.

I still watch the boxing matches on ESPN and HBO. But modern boxing is never as exciting as those days of my childhhood shared with my father. The point of this memory is to hopefully make fathers aware that their daughters need one-on-one time with their fathers. And it doesn't have to be doing things mothers might normally do with daughters. Quite the contrary, it is about doing things together that open communication and understanding between child and parent.

We live in such a busy world and are often stretched so thin that it seems as if all we can manage as an adult is making enough money to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table. But somehow enough time must be found by each parent to spend one-on-one time with each child individually. That investment now will pay back richly when that child becomes a teen and young adult who needs you to be the one approachable adult who will be there to listen and advise.

Try to find a tradition that is solely unique between you and child. It can make all the difference when difficult times threaten to separate child from parent.