Jules Feiffer - I grew up to have my father's looks, my...

It was like Jules Feiffer’s cartoon of the man who says, “I grew up to have my father’s looks, my father’s speech patterns, my father’s posture, my father’s opinions, and my mother’s contempt for my father.” It was all in there.

You think your parents are just a source of shelter and slaps, and then you grow up and find out that you become them, not a perfect copy, but one of those pirated films where you can see people in the theatre stand up and go to the toilet.

“Meu pai era um canalha e um bêbado”, diz ela, “mas pelo menos não era socialista.” Meu pai continua lendo calmamente, pois é um pouco surdo, e também aquilo não é novidade.

Sometimes I think I’m a total failure as a parent, but I’m all they’ve got. Before Jem looks at anyone else he looks at me, and I’ve tried to live so I can look squarely back at him . . . if I connived at something like this, frankly I couldn’t meet his eye, and the day I can’t do that I’ll know I’ve lost him. I don’t want to lose him and Scout, be

Jim Fry laughed. “When I think of my father,” he said, “I don’t think of someone who was secure in his sense of self.”