Well, hell I’m not Noel Coward or Lorenz Hart, and I can do that…
Well, Bobby and Betty have the flu and the new job’s a hassle
But stop by next time you’re near the castle, ('cause a neat metaphor for my home is a castle.)
Hah? Hah?
It seems pretty clear that the son grew up to be like the father - too wrapped up in trying to make life work to stop and appreciate life.
I’m not even sure he is meant to be a selfish bastard - just one who realized his priorities a little too late.
It is not uncommon for us all to think that there will be time to do the important things “some day.”
This Northern Ireland PSAput an interesting spin on it.
I read the Thread title as The End of “Cat’s Cradle”. Now that is an ending I would like explained.
(Whoops! not intending to derail the thread with that comment)
mr chapin’s wife wrote the word to “cats in the cradle”. she was trying to show him that if he didn’t spend more time with the kids that they would never know him and that the cycle wouldn’t break.
mr chapin penned the chorus and added the music.
it was a very good thing she wrote this; as after she gave him the poem he started to take his kids with him on tour. one or two would go with him during the school year and rotate out weeks, then on school breaks the whole family would go.
i remember reading this in his bio book, and thinking good thing he did that, 'cause he died in a car accident when his kids were young and they wouldn’t have had many memories of him.
Those are remarkably good points–I’ve reconsidered and I agree with you. 
(I still think a lot of Chapin’s stuff is whiney, but well written though. 
)
FTW!
I see it as “what goes around comes around”. The dad’s inattention to his son when he was younger has come back to bite him on the ass - other things are more important.
I think we all agree on that point. But the question is whether the son is rejecting his father’s values or repeating them. Will he ignore his children the way his father ignored him? Or will he break the cycle by giving his children the attention he never received himself?
I mentioned the song “Father of Mine” above. That song makes it clear that the singer is rejecting his father’s example: “Now I’m a grown man/With a child of my own/And I swear, I’ll never let her know/All the pain I have known.”
I don’t think it’s relevant in this song. This is just about the old man being lonely and forgotten in his old age, due to his earlier actions. The son has given up on him. I don’t think you can really answer what the son’s focus is now, other than he cares more about his job and his kids than his father.
I don’t think that the song answers this question. I’ve always interpreted it as saying that actions speak louder than words. The son learned that a proper man will always put work first, then his own interests, and then, if there’s any time left over, maybe spend it on his family. So when Son is a college student home on break, he doesn’t really want to spend time with the old man, he just wants the car keys to go off and do his own thing. And later still, of course, the son can’t make the time to see the father, because of his own job and kids…though we don’t know how much he interacts with his own kids. I notice, too, that Dad doesn’t offer to go visit the son, he seems to expect the son to visit him. Maybe it’s finances, maybe he can’t travel well now. Or maybe it’s just that he’s STILL incredibly self-centered, and thinks that if he’s got the time now, his son should drop everything and come running to see him.
They always grow up to be like you, it is up to you what kind of you you want them to be.
Well not always but sons in most cases do want to be like their dads, until they are about 13 or so then they think we are sooo not cool.
Lynn - The song doesn’t say that he expects the kid to come see him - the line reads “I called him up just the other day, I said ‘I’d like to see you if you don’t mind’, he said I’d love to Dad, if I could find the time.” if I called up my sister and said “I’d like to see you”, I wouldn’t expect her to make the trip to me, I’d go see her.
My view is the father neglected to make time for his kid’s childhood, and the kid has “grown up just like him”, too busy to see his dad or probably spend time with Janey and Johnny. he doesn’t hate his dad - “But it’s sure nice talking to you, Dad. It’s been sure nice talking to you.”
My father was a construction foreman, and when I was young he worked out of town during the week and came home on the weekends. But when he was home, we were with him. We helped him with things around the house, he’d take us to his job sites. Presently my brother is a salesman. he’s on the road for a couple weeks at a time. But when he’s home, he’s truly with his boys. When he can, he’ll bring a kid with him for day trips ad he takes them to the skate park or martial arts practice. It’s not always easy, but a good dad makes time for their kids. There’s more to being a parent then putting food on the table and clothes on their backs. Kids learn what they grow up with.
StG
I don’t think he’s so much “indifferent” as “so centered on his role as economic provider that he doesn’t have time for ‘the cutey-pie emotional stuff.’” They care about their family, but for them that care takes the form of work-work-work; even when they happen to be at home, they’re distant.
But yeah, there isn’t much to interpret. The son is just like his dad - which is something too many dads long for, until they realize what it means. My mother is always sighing how she wishes I was more like her… only, she can’t stand her own mother, and that’s one thing we do have in common for sure but which I don’t believe she includes in her wishes.
I just always took it to mean that the son was a chip of the old block, or that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
The son had grown up to have the same priorities as the father, and the father was only just then realising how screwed up those particular priorities were.
I always thought the father was WRONG at the end. He didn’t necessarily grow up like you. You were a shit that never even played catch with your son, he’s just paying your ass back. He might be a decent guy, i.e., he cares about his kid with the flu. You think the father would’ve cared. . . no f’ing way!
I don’t think there’s any malice or vindictiveness indended by the kid, just a complete emotional separation resulting from the father’s lifelong abstraction and distracted distance. The kid wasn’t trying to hurt the father, he just no longer had any attachment to him or time for him. The son isn’t angry, there just isn’t any bond left. The father feels himself getting blown off the way he always blew the kid off (and he never had any malice when he blew the kid off either), and realizes the kid is “just like me.” No hurt was ever intended by either party, the separation was just a result of neglected priorities and unconscious self-absorbtion.
This song always makes me want to go and go hug my own kids. To me, it’s just a reminder of what actually matters, and how easy it is to forget that, even without any ill intent.
FWIW, here’s what Wikipedia has to say about the song’s origin:
If Croce was an NPR fan the lyric might have gone,
*“Well, Bobby and Betty have the flu, and the new job’s a hassle
The next time you call you might hear Carl Kasell.” *
Did you ever hear of the saying, “Life is what happens, while your busy making other plans”?
This is what it’s about. The father was neglectful but not purposely so, and by the time he finally had the time for his son, his son was now in the same position he had once been.
It’s about patterns of behaviour repeating themselves over generations.
This was a common theme in the 70s, with the “find yourself, me-type” psychology that was so common in the 70s.