Lessons My Father Taught Me

by Michael Reagan

  “You’re out of your mind, Ronnie,” Mom said. “Without that life jacket, he’ll sink to the bottom.”

  Dad didn’t say a word. He just took off my life jacket, carried me to the pool, and—as Mom watched in horror—dropped me in.

  Years later, after Dad told me that story, I asked him, “What did you expect me to do?”

  “Well,” he said, “you swam, didn’t you?”

  It’s true. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know how to swim.

  Dad was an amazing swimmer. As a youth, he had worked as a lifeguard on the Rock River near his hometown of Dixon, Illinois. Because he was such a strong swimmer, Dad could hold his breath underwater forever. His swimming prowess came in handy when he played in the pool with Maureen and me at the Malibu ranch.

  The pool water came from a well, and the water was green and rust brown with minerals. Dad would dive down into that murky water, and Maureen and I would try to find him. We’d thrash all over the pool and have to come up for air five or six times while he hid at the bottom. Sometimes we’d think he was never coming up—and then he’d pop up in the far corner of the pool. We’d play that game until it was time to head home.

  At the end of the day, Maureen and I would flip a coin to decide whether to drive home via the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) or through the San Fernando Valley. The PCH was a spectacular drive, and we’d stop at the Foster’s Freeze by the Malibu pier for ice cream cones. The Valley road was lined with orange groves, apple orchards, and fruit stands, and if we went that way, we’d stop at a fresh cider stand on Ventura Boulevard.

  On Sunday mornings, Dad would take Maureen and me to his mother Nelle’s house in Los Angeles. Nelle had moved from Illinois to California in 1938. She’d drive us to Sunday school in her old Studebaker then bring us back to her house for Sunday brunch.

  My Irreplaceable Dad

  In late 1949, Dad met an actress named Nancy Davis. They dated for about a year before Dad introduced her to Maureen and me. Soon, he was bringing her on our weekend trips to the Malibu ranch.

  Later, when Maureen and I were alone, we’d talk about Dad and Nancy, and what it would be like if the two of them got married. By that time, Mom had sent Maureen and me to Chadwick, a private boarding school, so for most of the year I didn’t have much of a home life. I didn’t even get to see Maureen very much because she was four grades ahead of me. (I didn’t know then that I would spend most of my early years in boarding school and my summers at summer camp; only when I became an adult did I realize that because Mom was a working actress and a single mother, she really had no choice.) At night in the dorm, I’d lay awake, imagining how it would be if Dad and Nancy got married. In my childish naïveté, I pictured myself moving in with them, escaping from boarding school, and finally having a normal home life like families on television.

  Dad never raised his hand to us and rarely raised his voice. He had an unusual parenting style: he wouldn’t spank or scold—he’d tell a story. He spoke in parables—and he hoped you would connect the dots and get the point of the story. My father was the kind of guy who, if you asked him for the time, would tell you how the watch is made. That was his approach to parenting—and as we will later see, he approached politics the same way.

  I didn’t fear my father, but I respected him. I frequently disobeyed him behind his back, but I never defied him to his face. When he caught me doing something wrong, he’d give me that Ronald Reagan frown, and I’d instantly feel guilty. I almost never went to him with problems because our time together was too brief and I didn’t want to say anything to upset him. I also knew that Dad and Mom had an understanding, and I was afraid that if I shared something with Dad, he’d feel obligated to report it to Mom.

  At Chadwick, I appeared in a school play just before Memorial Day weekend. I had to wear a monkey costume, which was hot and made me feel sick. After the play, Dad and Nancy drove me home. I sat in the backseat of Dad’s convertible and felt sicker and sicker until I turned around, leaned over the backseat, and threw up. My stomach contents ended up in that recessed area that the car top folds into. I’m sure that when Dad discovered the mess, he figured out who did it—but he never said a word to me.

  When Mom wasn’t working, she’d bring me home for the weekend. Sunday evenings, when I returned to Chadwick, we had a tradition: Mom would take me out for dinner at the Brown Derby, and I would order my usual avocado cocktail. (My mother was a longtime friend of the Brown Derby owners Bob and Sally Cobb—the originators of the Cobb salad—and she wrote the foreword to Sally Cobb’s memoir and recipe book, The Brown Derby Restaurant: A Hollywood Legend).

  In the late 1950s, Mom was very busy with a weekly drama series on NBC, Jane Wyman Presents. On weekends when she was working and Maureen and I couldn’t go home, Dad would bring Nancy to Chadwick for a visit. I lived for those visits and reveled in our time together. As the visit was coming to an end, I’d feel a sense of melancholy setting in. When I watched Dad and Nancy drive away, the loneliness was almost unbearable.

  Dad and Nancy were married on March 4, 1952, at the Little Brown Church in the Valley, a chapel in Studio City—but their marriage didn’t change my life the way I hoped it would. I continued going to boarding school, and I didn’t move in with Dad and Nancy. My father did the best he could to stay involved with Maureen and me. In fact, no one ever worked harder at staying involved with the children of his first marriage than Dad. And while it was hard for me to live in a home without my Dad, he was there on the weekends without fail. He tried hard to be a good father to all four of his children.

  In November 1952, when I was seven, Mom also remarried. She had been dating a Hollywood bandleader, Fred Karger. Fred had composed the music for such films as From Here to Eternity, Magnificent Obsession, Gidget, and a string of Elvis Presley movies. One day, when his daughter Terry was visiting with us, our housekeeper, Carrie, called Maureen, Terry, and me together and gave us all handfuls of rice—then she told us to wait on the front porch. We said, “What’s this all about?” Carrie said, “You’ll see.”

  A few minutes later, Freddy and Mom pulled up in his black 1956 Thunderbird. Mom got out of the car and said, “Good morning, children. Meet your new father!” That was Mom’s tongue-in-cheek way of announcing that she and Fred were now married—they had eloped to Santa Barbara. We didn’t need to “meet” Fred—he had been coming around for more than a year. Maureen and I already knew Fred very well, and we liked him. Fred was a good guy.

  As Fred and Mom approached the front door, Carrie signaled us to throw the rice. As they walked through the door, Fred asked, “Where’s the toothache medicine?” (Translation: Where’s the scotch?) We told him, “You know where it is, Fred. Same place it’s been every other time you come here!”

  My mother and Fred were married for three years and then divorced in December 1955. They married again in March 1961 and divorced in March 1965. Fred and Mom were two people who loved each other but couldn’t live with each other.

  Fred’s daughter, Terry, is still a dear friend of mine today. I kid her and call her my stepsister twice removed. (Terry and Marilyn Monroe were best friends, and she’s writing a book about their friendship.)

  Now it did bother me somewhat that Mom said that Fred would be my “new father.” I already had a father, and no one could replace him. As it turned out, Fred didn’t try to replace my father. My relationship with Dad continued pretty much as before, and he still came by every other Saturday to take us to the ranch.

  On trips to the ranch, I watched Dad and learned from him. I’d see him working with his hands, cutting wood or fixing fences—and I admired his strength. He taught me how to ride horses and how to shoot a gun. He taught me not to lie or cut corners or take the easy way out. When I asked questions, he always had an answer that made sense.

  I studied him in those unguarded moments when he didn’t know I was watching. I made sure his deeds matched his words. I measured myself against the example he set, and I
realized I had a lot of growing to do. I wanted to be like him, and I wanted him to be proud of me.

  Dad seemed to understand that I was dealing with a lot of confusion and conflicting loyalties because of the divorce and remarriages. I often say that a divorce is where two adults, a mom and a dad, take everything that’s important to a child—home, family, security—and smash it to pieces. Then they walk away and expect the child to put it all back together. Well, I wasn’t putting things together very well—and my father could see that.

  One day, Dad did something amazing: he invited Fred to come out to the Malibu ranch. Looking back with an adult perspective, I can see what a wise gesture that was. Dad wanted to show me that he and Fred could get along. So Fred joined us for a day of hiking, riding, and four-wheeling around the ranch. Seeing Dad and Fred having a great time together made me feel happier than I had felt in months.

  Later, as Fred and I drove home together, he leaned over and said, “Let’s not tell your mother how much fun we had, OK?”

  “Why?”

  “Well—it would only upset her.”

  So I agreed, and I said nothing to Mom about our day.

  Blinded by the Divorce

  I loved my dad—but sometimes I wondered if he really loved me. He didn’t do the things with me that other kids got to do. He never took me to a baseball game, a football game, or Disneyland. And the irony is that Dad helped open Disneyland—but he didn’t take me. On July 17, 1955, Dad was one of three celebrity emcees Walt Disney chose to host a live ABC telecast of Disneyland’s opening day. The other two were Art Linkletter and Robert Cummings.

  I was ten years old at the time, and I would have loved to be at Disneyland on opening day. But I was home with Mom, watching the Disneyland special on television along with the rest of America. (However, in June 1959, my mother took me to Disneyland for the opening day of the Matterhorn Bobsleds—one of the best memories of my boyhood.)

  I once kidded my father and said, “Hey, Dad—remember that day you and Art Linkletter and Bob Cummings opened up Disneyland?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “At any time that day, did you think, ‘I should have brought the kids’?”

  “Well . . . no. It didn’t occur to me.”

  “I didn’t think so.”

  I was kidding—but I was also hurt. To Dad, opening Disneyland was a job. He was working, he was performing in front of the camera. He didn’t take his children to the movie set or the TV studio, so why should the Disneyland telecast be any different? But all I could see were the happy kids jumping aboard the Disneyland railroad, or running through the Fantasyland castle. And I couldn’t help wondering why I wasn’t one of those kids.

  I’m glad I learned to understand my dad’s thinking as I grew older. A lot of “Beverly Hills brats” never understood why their parents made the choices they did. Many of them stayed angry with their parents, or used their parents as the excuse for their failure in life, or spent everything they had on therapy, booze, and drugs, or wrote bitter, hateful tell-all books.

  Dad did everything he could to show me he loved me. To him, taking me to the ranch was the equivalent of taking me to a football game or a theme park. He assumed I’d understand that he couldn’t go out in public without being mobbed. But I didn’t understand at all—not until I was much older.

  In my early twenties, hoping to win Dad’s approval, I became a powerboat racer. I was inboard rookie of the year in 1966, outboard world champion in 1967, and I set five world records in the 1980s. I raised almost $2 million for charitable causes, including Cystic Fibrosis, the 1984 Olympics, and the Statue of Liberty Foundation.

  In 1969, while racing in the Speed Classic Circuit at Offats Bayou near Galveston, Texas, my twenty-foot Raysoncraft boat exploded, throwing me forty feet in the air. A rescue boat fished me out of the bayou, and I was fortunate to be alive.

  Dad called me the next day and said, “Michael, you might consider selling boats instead of racing boats—it’s a lot safer.” A couple of years later, I took his advice and got a job selling boats.

  Once, when I was in my late twenties, Dad called me at Harrison Boat Center, where I sold Sea Ray boats. He asked me to come to his office in Los Angeles because he needed—are you ready for this?—parenting advice. My brother Ron was a teenager at the time, and he was rebellious and angry. “Mike,” Dad said, “you’re closer in age to Ron than I am, so maybe you can tell me what his problem is.”

  On my way to Dad’s office, I wondered, What do I say? I had a good idea what the problem was, but how should I tell Dad? I remembered how he always used stories and object lessons to make his point with me. I decided to use an object lesson to help him understand Ron’s problem.

  Arriving in Dad’s office, I said, “I think I can help you with this. Take a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle.”

  He looked at me as if to say, All right, where is this leading? Then he took a piece of paper and drew the line.

  “Okay,” I said. “On the left side of the line, write the word ‘Football.’ On the right side, write the word ‘Baseball.’”

  And he did.

  “Now,” I said, “under ‘Football,’ write down the number of times you’ve taken Ron to a football game. Under ‘Baseball,’ write the number of times you’ve taken him to a baseball game.”

  Dad frowned at the paper; then he looked up at me—but he didn’t write anything. He couldn’t. “Michael,” Dad said with a stricken expression, “you’re right. I’ve never taken either of you boys to any games.”

  “Well, that’s the problem,” I said. “Dad, you need to sit Ron down and explain why. You’ve always taken us to the ranch to do what you wanted to do—and don’t get me wrong, we like going to the ranch. But a boy Ron’s age likes football and baseball like other kids do.”

  “Thank you, Michael. You’ve given me a lot to think about.”

  Dad didn’t make excuses. He listened. He genuinely wanted to be a good father to all of his kids—from both marriages.

  Fathers and sons make each other proud. But fathers and sons also disappoint and misunderstand each other. That’s why we need to honestly face the past, including our failures. When fathers and sons can tell each other the truth, seek each other’s counsel, and truly forgive each other, they make the bonds of love even stronger than before.

  It took a lot of years for me to see how hard my father worked at being a father to all of his children—to Maureen and me, as well as to Patti and Ron. It took me a long time to gain an adult perspective on my childhood losses and hurts. It took me a long time to really understand how much Dad loved me and how many sacrifices he made for me.

  Most of the questions I had about my relationship with Dad weren’t answered until very late in our relationship. In fact, I never even told him I had these questions about our relationship until 1988, the last year of his second term as president. What made those issues finally come into focus for me—and for him? I wrote a book.

  The process of working on my first book, On the Outside Looking In, forced me to look back over my life and to take a good, hard look at my childhood. It forced me to reexamine many of the immature attitudes and assumptions I had held since I was a boy. And it forced Dad and me to finally talk about issues we had never discussed before.

  During the process of writing that book, I visited Dad and Nancy in the residence quarters of the White House. We had dinner together, then Nancy retired for the evening and my father and I had a chance to talk. Dad recalled that conversation sometime later when he wrote the foreword to the paperback edition of my book:

  It was a conversation we should have had years and years ago; too much had been left unsaid on both our parts—but the important thing is that we finally did have the chance to open up to each other, Michael to unburden himself of years of doubt and self-recrimination, I to say things I always assumed he knew.

  Traveling back in my mind to Michael’s babyhood, seeing again his impish, angeli
c smile and recalling his unlimited energy, I now realize that many adopted children do see themselves as different. . . . As a parent then, I didn’t know how Michael felt inside. To me, he was my adorable little son, and from the moment he first smiled at me, I never recalled he was adopted. I loved him as I did my other children.

  We, as parents, must always strive to communicate with our children, to let them know there is nothing they cannot tell us, to let them know our love will always be with them. . . .

  Michael, whatever happens, always know I love you.2

  I know, Dad. I really do know.

  My father tried to show his love for me by spending as much time with me as he could. Sure, it would’ve been great fun to sit in the stands with him and watch a football game—but would that have been better than the times we spent bouncing around the ranch in his Jeep? Could I learn more about life from thrill rides in Disneyland—or by watching him cut wood and train his horses at the ranch?

  Dad proved his love to me again and again throughout my life. I’m glad I finally grew up enough to see it.

  Love Is Spelled “T-I-M-E”

  The U.S. Census Bureau reports that twenty-four million children in America—that’s one-third of all American kids—live in homes without their biological father.3 That’s twenty-four million kids who, at this very moment, are suffering the same insecurity and uncertainty I felt throughout my early years. That’s twenty-four million kids who are going to bed without daddy reading to them and tucking them in at night, who have no male role model in the home, and who are not being taught how a man should treat a woman or how a father should love his kids.

  Adults look at divorce and remarriage through grown-up eyes. They don’t stop to think about how this all looks from a child’s perspective. As moms and dads, we often get so caught up in our “needs” and our “rights,” in our arguing and defending ourselves, that we don’t stop to consider the frightened little child huddled in the corner.