3:10 to Yuma - A Cautionary Tale?

I watched 3:10 to Yuma last night.

3:10 is a fantastic movie. For those of you who have not seen it yet I highly recommend that you go to Blockbuster, or Netflix, or Redbox; whatever movie rental service you use and pick it up.

Yuma is the story of a struggling rancher who is being crushed under the weight of the debts he owes against his land. He sees himself as a failed soldier (he is a civil war vet), a failed husband, a failed father...basically a failed man living a failed existence. The countryside is in the grip of a prolonged drought and Dan Evans (Christian Bale), his wife and two boys are not even barely getting by. On a trip to sell some cattle and confront the men who are seeking to drive him off the land, Dan and his boys interrupt the notorious criminal Ben Wade (Russel Crowe) as he is robbing a stage coach. Later, after Dan goes into town to try to find the man he is indebted to, he sees Wade again and distracts him long enough so that he gets captured. The rest of the movie follows Dan and a band of men who are trying to get Ben Wade aboard the 3:10 train to Yuma so he can stand trial and face the hangman's noose for all the murder and theft he has had a hand in. They are pursued ruthlessly by Wade's gang, lead by his second in command Charlie Prince (masterfully played by Ben Foster).

I am not a film critic or reviewer. You may be reading this wondering what a western (even an EXCELLENT western) has to do with a post on Fatherhood Friday.

Dan's eldest son William goes against his parent's wishes and follows the men and eventually joins them in their quest to get Wade on that train. His disgust with his father is evident from the very beginning of the film. And one can hardly blame him. When we first meet Dan Evans, he has the look of a perpetually beaten dog. He is a defeated, failed man. He knows it, his sons know it. In the beginning Dan is telling his son that when he walks a mile in Dan's shoes, he will understand why Dan does the things he does. William looks right into his father's wounded eyes and coldly tells him "I ain't ever walking in your shoes." It almost seems like a challenge. 'Come on dad,' he is saying. 'Get mad. Fight for something!' Dan does nothing, simply sighs and moves on, accepting the rebuke as the truth he himself believes.

Failure is my biggest fear as a father. Hell, failure is my biggest fear in all areas of my life, not just fatherhood. It is very much a male thing. As men we feel deep inside that need, not just a desire but an almost flesh and blood need, to succeed, to be seen as competent. Because fatherhood is such a big part of who I am, failure in that arena is truly frightening.

But it really shouldn't be that way.

I know am going to have moments where I will fail as a father. I already have. I have made mistakes, I know I will make more. It is an inevitable fact of life. There is a bit of Dan Evans in me. That part of me that just wants to withdraw to a deep, dark cave when I fail. It is easier to turn from my failings than it is to confront them head on. That is what Dan did for so many years of his life. In the movie he gets to a place where he just can't take it anymore and has to risk not only his life, but also his son's life to break out of the cocoon of failure he has lived his life in. To make good on all his failures with one single act; one single, dangerous act.

I strive to never even get close to that point. We as fathers should not be afraid to fail. It is going to happen whether we like to admit it or not. And when it does happen we need to deal with it, admit to it. Whenever I fail my wife or my daughter, I should not be afraid to admit to them that I blew it. For my daughter especially, it is vitally important for her to see that with life comes failures and that when we make mistakes we need to learn from them so that when a similar situation arises we don't make the same ones. I want to teach her to think of failure as a tool instead of a disease, a tool she can use to make her a stronger person.

I don't want to spoil the movie by revealing how things turn out for and between Dan and William Evans. Watch the movie. And as a father, learn from Dan's mistakes. It's OK to let your children see you fail.

That gives you the chance to teach them how you stand.