My Father’s Day this year started a bit differently than most.

From 9 to 10 a.m. I watched “Meet the Press” with my wife. The program was dedicated to the life and times of Tim Russert, whose proudest part of life was being both a son and a father. I always felt some connection to Russert, having been raised Catholic, like him, with a great role model for a father. When I read his second book, Wisdom of Our Fathers, I used it as a springboard for my 2006 Father’s Day column.

The Father’s Day show ended with a montage of photos of Russert, with his father, son and other people important to him in life, accompanied by Bruce Springsteen’s “Thunder Road.” My wife had tears streaming down her face; I made her look composed. That show prompted an outpouring of thoughts and reflections, which I carried with me to Mass 30 minutes later — family in tow — and spilled over this week. What does it mean to be a good father? And am I one?

I have a sense for what makes a bad father, I think. The newspapers are full of examples of failed fathers, absent fathers and abusive fathers. That Sunday’s New York Times had a story written by an absentee divorced father — titled “As a Father, I Was a Hardly a Perfect Fit” — in which the author, Tim Elhajj, started the column with a described “weekly telephone call” with his son. Seems his ex-wife and son lived 200 miles away. I thought, A father’s contribution relegated to a weekly phone call? But the story went on to describe how that modest connection sustained father and son later in life, and I reminded myself that sometimes parental separation is not necessarily a statement of a father’s priorities.

So I’ve got my share of self-doubt. One issue has been burdening me of late — that I failed one of the most important things I held dear in my early parenting years: “Do your kids a favor, don’t make their lives easy.” That truism was in play every day when I grew up. My parents made sure I understood the importance of self-starting, hard work and pride in knowing you did it yourself. My wife’s family — no different. For my kids, it seems I’ve spent my parenthood smoothing out bumps, softening inevitable falls. To what end?

At the same time, I know there is a reservoir of parenting goodwill I’ve acquired over the years with my three sons and daughter. A connection I earned with my sons doing things like spending two weeks in the mountains at Philmont in New Mexico, coaching their teams and trying to lead by example. Over the years, I gained something only moms normally possess: knowing what they are thinking without anyone having to say a word. A nonverbal communication acquired from simply being there. Still, that’s little comfort on most Friday evenings as they head to God-knows-where doing God-knows-what.

With teenage sons, you fight for their attention. Simple questions, “How was your day/weekend/week?” never have very satisfying responses. When I really want to have a father-son discussion, I call my dad. He always reassures.

So that Sunday evening, Father’s Day, culminated with something that revealed another parental shortcoming. A sit-down dinner with a family prayer. And with six place settings, the conversations and storytelling began. Reminiscing not about grand vacations but the daily misadventures that seem to define our family. The focus that evening revolved around the year we lived in a rental home — with three boys in a bedroom that was maybe 10 by 15 feet. With a bunk-bed trundle combination worthy of a Japanese motel. One working shower and a hot water heater that went cold in the middle of shower number two. Every day. That Christmas, the surprise gift under the tree was left by our dog, Bernie.

In the end, you raise your kids with a moral compass, create and enforce boundaries and try to shape them into responsible, sensible, trustworthy, mature adults. Along the way, they will fail and so will you. And through it all the one sure thing is what Russert himself noted: “The older I get, the smarter my father seems to get.”

Matt Keenan is a humor columnist whose writing has appeared in the Kansas City Star in recent years. Many of those columns, including this article, make up his book, Call Me Dad, Not Dude. Matt and his family live in Leawood, Kansas, but they spend most of their time in the car running a cab service for their four teenage children.

This article was originally published in the Kansas City Star.