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CNN Sunday Morning
Interview With Robert Kamm
Aired June 16, 2002 - 11:22 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: For new fathers this is a good time to think about the kind of relationship you want to have with your kids. Our next guest has some ideas about how to be the best dad you can be. Robert Kamm is the author of "Real Fatherhood, The Path of Lyrical Parenting," and he joins us from Los Angeles this morning. Good morning and Happy Father's Day.
ROBERT KAMM, AUTHOR: Good morning and thank you, Fredricka.
WHITFIELD: All right, well just like moms, dads want to know how do you find some balance between your career life, your personal life and your family life being a parent. Do you have some uplifting advice for us or did I understand your book correctly in that you're saying you really can not have true balance if you want to be a good parent?
KAMM: Well do we have a half hour to discuss this?
WHITFIELD: No, we've got four minutes so make it quick.
KAMM: OK. First of all, I've never claimed to have all the answers but I do know some stuff.
WHITFIELD: Yes.
KAMM: And here's what I know.
WHITFIELD: OK.
KAMM: There is no human relationship that is more precious, more sacred and more filled with the possibility of becoming living, breathing art on a day-to-day basis than the parent/child relationship because it is so imbued potentially with love.
However, this does not happen automatically. This poetry, this sense of art does not happen automatically. It takes an enormous investment of time and creative energy, and I believe from my own experience in my fatherhood and as a coach, as a parenting and leadership coach, that our discussions about balance today are really a bit misguided.
During the first ten years of life, we really need to put our children first. We really need to take on fatherhood or parenting as the master work of our lives and not a... WHITFIELD: Isn't that the true challenge, though?
KAMM: Yes.
WHITFIELD: Because most people have to work and the jobs are no longer nine to five. We're talking about ten hour days, 12 hour days and then you get off work and somehow you still have to build a relationship between you and your child. So that's the huge obstacle at everyone's, you know, front doorsteps everywhere.
KAMM: It is.
WHITFIELD: I mean, they've got to figure out how do you do that.
KAMM: Yes.
WHITFIELD: So.
KAMM: It's the challenge that we need to take on and we must take it on because what's happening is that our parenthood is drifting out into the margins of our career and this represents a significant long-term peril for the quality of our culture. So we have to fight the socioeconomic status and there are things that we can do. I mean we can -
WHITFIELD: OK, such as?
KAMM: Such as, we can live closer to work. We can work closer to home. We can use the family friendly practices that a lot of companies offer but that many men have been reluctant to use for fear that it will slow the career track, and my message to them is, "you're right. It will, but that's OK," because your kids come first during their first five to ten years, during which they're so vulnerable and dependent on you.
WHITFIELD: And you're really saying that put those aspirations of climbing the corporate ladder on the back burner because building a relationship with your child is far more important.
KAMM: I am saying that and I did it personally. I only speak from experience. I set aside my primary career dream, really for 20 years. It's just now that I'm starting to do it.
WHITFIELD: but isn't there also an argument that if you don't take care of your own personal needs and aspirations, then you really can't be a good parent because you're going to feel that there are some voids in your life and perhaps you're not going to be as giving to your child?
KAMM: There is some validity to that and then it fades off into self indulgence past a certain point. The argument that we have to go away from our children to be fulfilled, so that we can come back to them to fulfill them, I think is at least half false, because being a real and present parent is hands down the single most fulfilling experience a person can have. That's my own personal experience. I've had a lot of success in worldly terms, but nothing compares to what I feel about my son and the relationship that we've had now for 27 years.
WHITFIELD: And these discoveries came to you as a parent, as a grandparent, or how much do you extract from your relationship between you and your dad?
KAMM: Well, it's mostly from -- well I certainly have learned a lot from my relationship with my dad and I'm blessed that he's still on the planet. He's 85 years old, Happy Father's Day dad. But most of my learning has come as a parent, a stepparent and now as a grandparent, and also working again as a leadership and parenting coach to very successful people across a broad spectrum of business all over the country.
WHITFIELD: All right, Robert Kamm, thank you very much. The book is "Real Fatherhood, The Path of Lyrical Parenting." Parenting is not easy.
KAMM: It's not easy, but we have to fight the good fight and carve out a little bit more time every single day.
WHITFIELD: All right, thanks very much. It's a big job but a job well worth it say a lot of parents. I'm not a parent yet, but you know, I get the message.
KAMM: May you be a parent. May you be as joyful in it as I have been.
WHITFIELD: All right, thank you very much and Happy Father's Day once again.
KAMM: Thank you. Thank you very much.
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