On how John accidentally proves how important fathers are.

[dreadedcandiru2]

Every so often, I remind myself of the children's book "Farley Follows His Nose" and the vision of the family that we see. While most people would probably assume that John's at work totally unaware that Farley went walk-about or why he did so, it's rather easy to envision a world in which he's physically absent instead of just emotionally absent. For all of this talk about providing his children with his idea of what a home is, he tends to forget a key component of the sort of home he wants them to have: a father.

This is because he seems to think that his part is to provide material things and impose penalties on people who transgress against his vision of perfection by, I don't know, not finding yard work to be the pleasurable be-all and end-all of human existence or grinning mindlessly to make him feel good or stuff. He simply cannot be asked to get to know the people in his family or care about their concerns because his ability to identify with the concerns of others isn't especially flexible or extensive. He can worry about a man like himself because he can spare the mental effort to do so but he's pretty much too lazy to think about what it's like to be Elly or the kids and too envious of a fictitious advantage they have to want to.