A Word from the Dads
Looking for some dad wisdom? To celebrate Father's Day, enjoy these letters from famous fathers to their children.
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So today… bring back letter writing, right? There’s something about the act of sitting down and putting pen to paper for someone that can tap into dormant wisdom - well, it worked for these guys! To celebrate Father’s Day, we’ve picked five excerpts from letters written from famous fathers to their children…
Albert Einsten to his son, Hans Albert.
In 1915, Albert Einstein was 36 and living in war-torn Berlin while his two sons lived with their mother in Vienna. He wrote to his 11-year-old, Hans Albert, and mentioned he’d just completed “one of the most beautiful works of my life” - a little project known as his theory of general relativity - then went on to spend a paragraph responding to his son’s joy in playing the piano.
“Mainly play the things on the piano which please you, even if the teacher does not assign those. That is the way to learn the most, that when you are doing something with such enjoyment that you don’t notice that the time passes. I am sometimes so wrapped up in my work that I forget about the noon meal… .”
Aaron Sorkin to his daughter, Roxanne.
In an open letter to his daughter for TIME magazine in 2013, screenwriter Aaron Sorkin shared the story of her arrival into the world and the reason she was named after the heroine from the play, Cyrano de Bergerac - a brave character who, it turned out, wasn’t led by shallow considerations, but rather by the depths of the heart and mind. “So take a page from Roxanne’s playbook”, Aaron said.
“Be brave and know that the bravest thing you can do is be willing to not fit in. Never take pleasure in someone else failing. Dare to fail yourself. Be the one who doesn’t care as much about clothes as the person wearing them. Be kind, be compassionate and be humble. Once I saw you sit down next to a kid who was eating lunch all alone - always be that person. Once I saw you go up to a little girl who was crying on the playground and ask her what was wrong - always be that person. The girl who said, ‘I don’t associate with bullies’? That was you. You’ve got a giant heart and a world-class-brain-in-training and Roxy, you’ve got character.”
W.E.B. Du Bois to his daughter, Yolande.
As the first African American to receive a doctorate from Harvard, sociologist and civil rights pioneer W.E.B. Du Bois believed in the power of education. So when his daughter, Yolande, was about to turn 14, he enrolled her in one of England’s most prestigious boarding schools. Shortly after her trip across the Atlantic in 1914, 46-year-old Du Bois wrote to prepare her for the challenges ahead.
“Don’t shrink from new experiences and custom. Take the cold bath bravely. Enter into the spirit of your big bed-room. Enjoy what is and not pine for what is not. Read some good, heavy, serious books just for discipline: Take yourself in hand and master yourself. Make yourself do unpleasant things, so as to gain the upper hand of your soul.”
Kurt Vonnegut to his daughter, Nanette.
In 1972, author Kurt Vonnegut responded to a letter from his youngest daughter, ‘Nanno’, who was in college. Three years earlier, when Slaughterhouse-Five was published, Kurt’s family life had begun to crumble. Now split from his wife and living in New York, Nanno had written that she loved him a lot. He replied, “That helps, and it lasts for years” before sharing some advice with his trademark wit...
“Most letters from a parent contain a parent’s own lost dreams disguised as good advice. My good advice to you is to pay somebody to teach you to speak some foreign language, to meet with you two or three times a week and talk. Also: get somebody to teach you to play a musical instrument. What makes this advice especially hollow and pious is that I am not dead yet. If it were any good, I could easily take it myself.”
Ethan Hawke to his daughters, Maya, Clementine and Indiana.
Ethan Hawke also penned an open letter to his daughters in 2013. He encouraged his girls not to miss out on the lessons sports can teach us (“There are certain secrets you can only learn when you are running as fast as you can”) and reminded them that no matter the challenges life brings, it’s how we handle them that matters. He also had a few secrets from his own mother…
“My mother raised me to be a feminist and I wonder how I can do the same for you.
“The best advice she ever gave me is to never make a big decision without walking at least a mile. Also, that there is no cure for blues better than reading. Read. It makes you more intelligent. It’s that simple. We all see the universe through the tiny keyhole of our own eyes, and every book is another keyhole from which you can gaze.”
Reading is the best cure for the blues - ain’t that the truth!
Great content…. my favourite quote by a mile is …. ‘The bravest thing you can do is be willing to not fit in’ …. but you probably knew that about me!!!