THE GOOD FATHER: Reminiscing About a Dad Who​Made a Difference

As the Museum of Teaching and Learning develops its newest exhibition, Your Baby’s Amazing Brain, I often reflect on my children’s father—my late husband Fred—and his creative, brain-stimulating methods of parenting. His influence during their childhoods has had lasting results on their adult lives.
 
Playing board games was always a fun family event and even continues to this day with two of my adult children. He knew that the board game Scrabble could teach the power of words and help increase vocabulary. Monopoly is excellent for teaching how to arbitrate moves and to negotiate. Fred was patient in teaching our children how to play, modeling how to play. However, when they became good at the game, his competitiveness came out.

Our oldest son, Greg, grew to become 6’7” tall. His dad thought he would be good at basketball, but Greg was not interested, so Fred taught him how to play chess and he became quite good at it. He went on to play at the La Habra Community Center with men three times his age—and won many times. Like many fathers, Fred particularly challenged his first son whether it was academics or sports.

Tennis was a sport that Fred enjoyed; he taught and played with the children. He would place tennis cans in strategic positions on the court and had them try to knock them over when practicing their serves and other moves on the tennis court. He offered to pay them twenty-five cents for each tennis can they could knock over. He was very athletic and saw this ability in his own children, especially his daughter.

Fred was quite creative in his fathering. Several summers we rented a cabin with a pier and a rowboat at a spot called Fletcher’s Point in Vermont. Each night he made up stories to tell the children around a cheery old pot-belly stove. Many times these were scary stories, so the kids enjoyed them thoroughly. One night he got an idea to plant a hidden treasure on an island in the middle of the lake. He then made a “pirate’s map” which he crumpled up and put in the woodpile adjacent to the stove. That night, when telling a bedtime story, he reached over to put a log in the stove and picked up a piece of paper asking, “What’s this?” Then he unfolded the piece of paper to share the map he had secretly drawn.

Early the next morning, the kids raced down the pier to the boat and rowed to the island. My husband and I watched from the front porch of the cabin. We could see them marking their steps to the place of the hidden treasure and digging for it with the shovel they took. The treasure was several small film canisters filled with quarters. How delighted they were to find them! This exercise helped them to learn spatial concepts from reading the map and eventually finding the treasure.

We loved being with the family outdoors. During a hike in Big Bear, Fred asked the kids, “What would you do if we were snowed in and had to spend the night on the mountain? Would you need to build a shelter? Their imagination went wild, hunting for tree limbs that had fallen and designing a structure with those limbs placed against one of the trees. He would then ask questions about the structure, such as how sturdy it was and what else was needed. The “wheels” were turning in their little heads and their enthusiasm for solving problems like this really showed through!

We also went backpacking in Mineral King once a year. We’d spend the first night at a base camp which had a river that ran through it. The river contained fish and provided fresh running water. The kids learned how to fish, how to set up their tents and collect fallen tree limbs for the campfire. The next day, we backpacked to one of the five trails like Five Mosquito Lake, Franklin Lake, and Eagle Lake. One child, daughter Nancy, would be the brave soul to go and swim in the cold water.

Nancy was also into building and making things at a young age. For her fourth Christmas, we bought her a tool set. Her father always encouraged her and showed her the basics of cutting, nailing, etc. when building something. She designed a catcher’s mask for her little brother for baseball, go-carts, a tree-house and miniature golf course in the backyard.
 
Rather than just give answers to the children’s questions, Fred encouraged them to look up the answers themselves in the Encyclopedia Britannica and the dictionary. He would show them how to do things, for example, building model ships; how to prune trees and sculpture bonsais; changing a tire on a bike; putting up a tent and starting a campfire; and looking up at the sky at night and talking about the constellations and stars.

Photo of Fred Brannock

Saturdays were set aside for doing chores around the house. Everyone had assigned responsibilities from cleaning the pool to dusting and vacuuming. There were no allowances for doing chores for it was just part of learning to be a member of the family. The kids could receive money for things that were considered extras like removing trees or other large projects. The kids also had paper routes, tended to neighbor’s pets, and watered plants for neighbors on vacation for extra money.


Sunday afternoons were always set aside for family bike rides. Watching Disney on television was a family past-time with one of the kids usually sitting on his lap. Doing things together as a family was very important to him, even though he traveled a great deal, he still made time for family events. We always sat together as a family at dinnertime and discussed the day’s events or other pertinent things – it was considered an important bonding time.


Our youngest son, Sam, wanted a snake when he was four years old so Fred took him to the pet store to get one. Sam picked out a snake that was pregnant and the snake, shortly after purchasing her, had babies. When they were born, they did not survive, and Sam seemed sad and immediately went to his room. Fred followed and sat on the lower bunk bed with him talking about his feelings. Sam felt safe expressing his feelings with his dad. Offering a safe environment is important for kids to get in touch with their feelings and be heard.


Parents need to control their feelings when stressed and take time out to calm down before talking with their child. When a parent is stressed, it affects the child’s cognitive abilities, diminishing the ability to think clearly, be attentive, stay focused and solve problems. Fred was a good father and was able to put aside his frustrations and anger when dealing with issues our children were facing.
Perhaps some of you, our readers, would like to share your thoughts about a positive time you experienced growing up.


Submitted by Jo Ann Brannock
Member of the MOTAL Board of Directors