William Chaplar (August 18,1961 / Trenton, New Jersey)

"Like father, like son" is a thing people say,
but how does that fit with how we live today?
Was my father bad 'cause he didn't play games?
Since he didn't change diapers, should I now be ashamed?
Should people find fault because he didn't cook
or, because in house cleaning, he rarely partook?
Does the fact that the washer was to him unknown
make him less of a father; someone I should disown?
I live in a world where some people say
that real men should do all of these things every day.
But that isn't the world that my father lived in.
So, 'cause he didn't do them, was he less masculine?
There is praise to be heaped on the modern-day man
and his contributions to the modern-day clan.
But for every such guy in his forties or more,
there's an old-fashioned father we cannot ignore.
For it's because of him and the things that he's done
that people can now say, "Like father, like son."