The Father Politic

Columnist Ruben Navarrette ties in the personal, the political, and the paternal in this recent column about the birth of his first son, the expectation of future conflict based on his and his brothers' discord with their father, and likewise dad's earlier friction with gramps. This dubious tradition doesn't stop with the Navarettes of course, as two presidential contenders' father and son relationships get discussed on the national stage almost daily: Rudy Guliani and his plea for privacy on the chilly relationship with his twenty one year old son, and Barack Obama's well documented abandonment - although he never expresses it that way - by his Kenyan dad, whom he met only once again after his parents' divorce when he was two years old. Navarrette takes the responsibility of raising a son seriously, and like the rest of us, vows to do a better job than his old man.

A generation ago, my father and uncles collided with my grandfather...much of the conflict tended to be over competing egos and differences in opinion about how we all should live our lives.

I'd like to break from that family tradition with my own son, Santiago. Along the way, I don't suppose I'll be seeking parenting advice from Rudy Giuliani.