An Ideal Father
Autor: Cezar Capacle | Publicado: 2010-05-26T12:51:00-03:00

Fuçando aqui nos meus intermináveis backups, encontrei um texto que escrevi quando estava cursando CPE na Cultura Inglesa. Gostei do que li e resolvi postar aqui.

A ideia era escrever uma carta em resposta a um artigo que dizia que os pais estavam perdendo a função na família, dando um exemplo de um pai ideal que sustentasse seu argumento contrário ao autor do artigo.

Não seria capaz de traduzir o texto para português, então ficou em inglês mesmo. Minhas desculpas aos que não lêem inglês, não rolaria mesmo. Mas dá sempre pra jogar no Google Translate... Não!!! Não faça isso!

Sério. Não.


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Dear Sir,I am writing to respond to your article about the declining role in the family of fathers today. Although agreeing with the unclearness of this role, I would not consider it a recent phenomenon, as our society has been taught to see mothers as the cornerstone of families – at least regarding raising children – for as long as history tells us; a society in which children’s first spoken word is most invariably “mommy”. Even then, I strongly believe in the existence of real fathers, those being who, under the ever-lasting hegemony of mothers, succeeded in overshadowing the deeply-rooted heedless stereotype, being therefore able to establish their own role in the family. I would like to briefly relate the story of a man who, following the preceding definition, I regard as an ideal father – Dick Hoyt.Whoever sees a sixty-five-year-old man running while pushing his son on a wheelchair cannot imagine what this father-and-son team has been through. When his son Rick, who suffers from cerebral palsy, was first allowed to communicate using a custom-designed computer, he, much for Dick’s surprise, typed the words “Go Bruins”. As the attentive father he had always been, Dick realized that his son, once considered by doctors doomed to live in a vegetative state, was a prize sports fan.Five years had passed when they decided to partake in a five-mile run. Dick, far from being a long-distance runner, would practice for five hours a day, pushing a bag of cement on a wheelchair while Rick was at school. They managed to finish the run and, dazzled after this first valiant attempt, Rick wrote: “I didn’t feel handicapped while I was competing”. Not surprisingly, that single sentence was enough for Dick to embark on even more daunting challenges, including a triathlon competition.Today, the Hoyts team has participated in over 200 triathlon competitions, amongst other athletic endeavors. For the last 25 years, Dick has pushed his son on a wheelchair while running, carried him on a front-seat when cycling and pulled him on a boat for the swimming part. Nevertheless, I personally see those achievements as secondary. Above all, I see a story of a man that knew his role and his son well enough to be capable of transforming himself in such a way as to allow his child to be what he dreamed of being. That one boy certainly understands the concept of being a father, as he says: “The thing I’d most like is that my dad would sit in the chair and I would push him once”.&nbsp; What lesson could be more meaningful to be taught to a boy?Yours faithfully,Cezar Capacle