I wouldn’t go so far as to say the father is “bad.” He just chose the wrong things to focus on- tried to make his family comfortable with money, instead of his presence- and is living to regret it. I wonder, though, how many times the guy who wrote “Men are from Mars…” listened to the song, since he uses several examples of fathers just like this one.
God, I hate that song. Whenever my Dad wants to drive up and visit me and I happen to have plans already that day he sighs and says, “shades of Harry Chapin.” Not that it’s so far from the truth.
Very, very clearly, the song writer is saying that the father is a bad but well meaning parent who gets what’s coming to him. The song is stuffed with “morals of the story” beyond belief. You reap what you sow. Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it. Blah, blah blah.
Don’t mind me, I’m cynical, just like Dad.
Haj
Slight Hijack.
On a recent interview on A&E’s Biography, Jerry Orbach
(the actor who portrays Det. Lenny Briscoe on Law & Order)
relates how he broke down in tears when he first heard the song.
You demonstrate to your children how important family is, how important your relationship to them is. They learn about relationships from your example. Being a father is not limited to making money, and paying bills. Being a son is not limited to admiring your father for his accomplishments. Shared joys, shared sorrows, and time spent together are the building materials of a loving relationship.
By the time your children are adults, you are already living the relationship that you have with them, and changing it is very hard to do. Get busy on it now, because your grandchildren are already depending on it, while your child is still a child.
Yes, it is a very sad song.
All victims, no villains.
Tris
If we’re relating bad to evil, I don’t think he’s bad. There are a LOT of bad parents out there. But I don’t think he’s good either. Being a good parent is more than providing food and shelter. If that’s all that’s required, why bother? Save yourself $300,000 and don’t have the kid in the first place.
Even if the song is about regret, that doesn’t make the parent good. Looking back and saying “yeah, I made a mistake,” doesn’t erase the mistake. To know that you’ve raised someone who’s going to be distant with his own kids only compounds the mistake.
And I realize the song can’t go on forever, but look at what’s implied by its exclusion: the father is now a grandfather. He has a grandchild he can love and spend time with, but he doesn’t. How regretful can he be?
I vote for bad.
Bad, but not evil or immoral-just mistaken priorities.
Plus, it forshadows when the father starts to realize he is making a mistake-
It’s almost as if they’re reversing roles-the son keeps saying, “I’m going to be like him,” and he eventually does.
BUT…the dad is now in the son’s role-he wants to see the other, but the other has no time for him.
Also, the chorus changes from:
The son does become his dad-but in the process, the dad becomes the son.
I’ve always liked that song.
I agree with the majority here. Nobody is accused of being “good” or “bad”…but it is a sad situation. And a common one, as well.
To me, the overall tone is best described as bittersweet.
Maybe that’s why I like it so much…it evokes feelings of several relationships I’ve had in my life (including, but not limited to, my father and my stepfather).
Love to All,
TN*hippie
Well, on the bright side, the son seems unwilling to leave his own kid when s/he’s sick, or drag hir to see grandpa thus. 
Seems like a lot of people have this mindset: they work to keep their family in a certain lifestyle, and the tradeoff is time. “I have to work! I work to afford this nice house! With a pool! And to afford your car and your CD player and your ski trips! Why are you so spoiled?”
Of course, some parents are overworked not because they’re ambitious but because they’re in debt. Like my parents.
I know it wasn’t easy for them, but I pulled my weight. I did more housework than my mom did, and I didn’t begrudge it. But the least she could have done was not to act like coming home was the worst part of her day. My sister did the same thing with my nephew, and look how he turned out.
Well, my mind sort of boggles at the idea that there’d be multiple interpretations of Cats in the Cradle – it’s got all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. “As the bough is bent, so grows the tree.”, and in this case, Dad never had time for the kid growing up, once the kid has grown up, he doesn’t have time for Dad.
We don’t know enough to characterize the father as a “bad” parent, but he is one who has failed to take the opportunity to form a strong bond with his son. So consider it a cautionary tale.
Probably, btw, my least favorite Chapin song, if only by dint of constant repetition.
Total agreement. I don’t think there is a lot of animosity from the singer’s/writer’ point of view, but there is a real sadness. The man raised a son who is distant and too busy for him. The line
“I’d love to Dad if I could find the time- you see the new job’s a hassle and the kids have the flu- but it’s sure nice talking to you Dad- it’s been sure nice talking to you”
Sounds to me like the son cares, but just has never formed a close relationship and thinks it’s normal and natural to NOT spend time with his father.
Zette
I’m hesitant to call him a bad parent. People who try and do the right thing, even when they’re mistaken about what the right thing is, aren’t bad people. My father was the greatest man I have ever had the pleasure of knowing, yet I didn’t get to spend as much time with him as I wanted, due to the fact that he, at times, held two jobs to support his family.
I’m pretty sure there is an extremely large number of children who would gladly trade in their father for the father in the song.
To my thinking the song doesn’t have enough information to answer the question. (bear with me!) The “proof” is in the two unstated relationships i.e. between “Dad” and his father and the relationship between “Son” and his son.
Was the disconnection an aberation, or was it the characteristic of all three?
IMHO, the answer hangs on your interpretation of the lines:
“He’d grown up just like me.
My boy was just like me.”
I think that if “Son” is connected to his own son, then it would be “My boy is not like me.”
Without a lyric to back this up, I think “Dad” had a more normal relationship with his own father. Through pressures and priorities he came to be disconnected from his son (and probably his father as well). “Dad” has come to regret his disconnection from his son and also recognises that this is being repeated in the next genertion by “Son”, who will similarly come to regret this … and there is very little “Dad” can do about it.
Q1: How is the father viewed by the songwriter: Good or bad parent?
Neither, he’s an all too stereotypical parent.
Q2: How does the songwriter portray the relationship at the end of the song between the father and the son: good or bad?
Bad, in so far as the disconnection is being continued.
has the word “tragic” been mentioned?
“good” and “bad” are very limiting…
and, Fenris, if you took a bet bet based on EITHER ‘good’ OR ‘bad’, you deserve to lose.
(hoping I do not run afoul of copyright law by posting this)
I’d always thought that the point of the peppy chorus together with the escalating separation of the verses, was to make the point that all the spoken sentiments were not what the child learned but rather the father’s actions became his behaviour.
I think the answer to both questions is - unfortunate.
what goes around comes around
It’s interesting that as a Baby-boomer I first heard this song in the Cat Stevens years and it’s lost none of its impact since then.
For me the difference is that in those lazy 60s and 70s years in which I grew up the song’s message was the exception - all to often now, it’s the rule; those Boomers who were so intent on material succes are now all to often finding that their wn children and grandchildren can’t fit them into their busy schedules.
Poignant is the word which springs to mind.
I’m with BDGR and DMC and apart from the fact that the song is now spinning around my head AAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH.
I don’t think that the father was Bad. He obviously provided for the family and the kid grew up to be decent and law abidig etc. Given the number of parents who can’t even do this, I think that the father deserves some credit for not producing a menace to society. He obviously isn’t a Good father, but then a lot of people have overly high opinions of their parenting skills.
I think that he was a mediocre parent - for the above reasons and also because the song had to have a point and I think is is both about a father/son and a comment of the shift in society towards consumerism and away from family values.
My vote is for nieither as there is a little bit of most of us in the song.
The father regrets the way he raised his son. In his own eyes, he’s a bad parent.
Notice the way his son gives him the brush-off at the end? “It’s sure nice talking to you, Dad; it’s been sure nice talking to you.” Dad calls, trying to spend time with the son, and the son gives him the same quick brush-off that he received at the hands of the dad so many times.
The son wanted to feel loved by the father as he was growing up. The father wants to feel loved by the son at the end of the song. The actions of both show that neither happened.
Given the confines of the OP, I’d have to say the answer to both questions is “bad.”
Who says he isn’t a good father?
This song could almost illustrate my father’s life. The sadness that his generation must have felt, because his was the FIRST* that had to spend lots of time on the road ‘doing business’, and thus were UNABLE to give their families the attention that previous generations (who were largely rural and/or stayed close to home) could - because it was what was required of them to survive.
Imagine “Cat’s in The Cradle” for the current generation - with BOTH parents absent.
*by First, I mean that a larger number of his generation were on the road than ever before. Couple that with the baby boom, and you get MANY families with absent fathers.
Not to be confused, of course, with Cat Stevens’ song “Father and Son”. I know that you weren’t confusing it, but I just wanted to bring it up, because, for some reason, a lot of people think that Stevens sang “Cat’s in the Cradle”.