From the World War II Dad to the Trente Glorieuses Dad

some scattered thoughts

The other night my friend Matt alluded to the well-known phenomenon of the World War II Dad — the person (perhaps male, perhaps a parent, but in any case, affect- and style-wise, a Dad) who, on hitting his thirties/forties, suddenly develops a consuming interest in the minutiae of World War II. He said that he had developed a variation: the Cold War dad. This is a person who, on reaching a developmental plateau, gaining a bit of adult equilibrium, and needing a place whence to direct attention, obsesses not about World War II, but about the Cold War period — especially the era from roughly JFK to Carter.

I informed him, somewhat peremptorily, that he was late. I am this kind of dad.