Fatherhood Quote by Robert Brault

Parenting advice often pretends authority is the whole job; Brault flips it into a negotiation. "If you really try to be a father" makes effort the entry fee, not biology, not the title, not the paycheck. The verb is doing quiet work: try. Not perform, not control, not perfect. It’s an appeal to persistence and humility, a refusal of the macho fantasy that fatherhood is something you declare and then enforce.

The second clause lands with a gentle surprise: "your child will meet you halfway". That image reframes the child from passive recipient to active partner, someone with agency, instincts, and a desire to connect. It’s optimistic without being naive. Brault isn’t claiming kids are endlessly accommodating; he’s suggesting that consistency invites reciprocity. The subtext is as much a warning as a comfort: if you don’t show up, don’t be shocked when your child can’t or won’t cross the distance for you.

"Halfway" is also a corrective to two common parental delusions. One is the martyr narrative, the parent who believes love should be proven through total self-erasure. The other is the authoritarian narrative, where closeness is demanded. Brault proposes a middle space: attachment built through repeated bids for connection that the child can trust.

Context matters: in late-20th-century conversations about fatherhood, the cultural bar was often low - be present, be sober, be employed. Brault quietly argues for something more emotionally literate: fatherhood as earned relationship, not inherited power.