Struggles As A Boy Led To Strength As A Father

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Michael Cahn said he would "cry for a week" after walking his daughter Maya Leonard-Cahn down the aisle.

StoryCorps

Michael Cahn said he would "cry for a week" after walking his daughter Maya Leonard-Cahn down the aisle.

Just a short time before her wedding, Maya Leonard-Cahn, the third of four sisters, brought her father, Michael, to StoryCorps in Eugene, Ore., as a surprise for Father's Day.

There, Cahn reflected on his own boyhood in a troubled home.

As Cahn told his daughter, his father was "a pretty serious alcoholic — and my mom kept a low profile and just tried to survive."

Cahn said he often felt lost as a boy, and he knew that if he ever had children, he did not want to make the same mistakes his father had.

Before he became a father, Cahn said he had never imagined that he would have four daughters. But he often told friends that he had never really wanted a son.

"I had such a bad experience as a boy that it kind of scares me to be a male role model for a boy," he said.

Cahn told his daughter that fatherhood changed him "from the moment my children came onto this Earth.

"Catching you as you emerged into this world, cutting your umbilical cord, washing you off, was the highest high I think I could ever experience."

Anticipating the coming wedding day, Cahn said he expected to "cry for a week" after walking his daughter down the aisle.

"I caught you with my catcher's mitt, maybe I'll give you away with my catcher's mitt," he joked.

Cahn cautions his daughter that conceiving a child is easy, "but there's a lot one can learn about being a parent.

"What you tell your kids doesn't matter," Cahn said. "What you show them — what you model for them — is everything.

"And the thing that helped me so much and always has and always will," he said, "is the love and support and the presence that my daughters allow me to have in their lives."

Produced for Morning Edition by Vanara Taing, with help from Nadia Reiman. The senior producer for StoryCorps is Michael Garofalo.