There are many types of fathers. Some produce children with their wives, some adopt, others care for children brought into their lives by their partners.
Although every home may be different, one thing remains constant. Dedicated dads agree the most important thing about being a good father is putting the kids first.
This week I’m shining the spotlight on four dads from Naperville with heartwarming stories. None of them thinks being a dad is easy, but with a little effort they think they can help be a positive influence in the lives of their children.
Father’s Day will always hold an extra special memory for father of three Mike Calabrese. That day in 2012 he adopted his oldest daughter Carla just in time to walk her down the aisle.
Naperville lawyer Mike Calabrese adopted his stepdaughter Carla so he could walk her down the aisle as her dad at her 2012 wedding. (Mike Calabrese)
“Our family is unique,” said Calabrese, a family lawyer who is dad to Carla, 36, Selina, 25, and Michele, 24. “Carla isn’t mine biologically, but I’ve raised her since she was three and a half.” Calabrese is married to Rena Tamayo Calabrese, CEO of Naper Settlement.
“I wanted to adopt her her whole life, but her father objected,” he said. “But when was getting married in 2012, she wanted to get married as a Calabrese and have me walk her down the aisle.”
As a surprise, his wife, who is also a lawyer, worked with his paralegal to draw up the adoption papers.
“On Father’s Day they presented me with a present which will never be topped; those papers,” he said.
Calabrese says he’s always put his daughters first. He left a law job in Chicago to start his own business in the suburbs so he could set his own hours and use Wednesdays to volunteer at their schools. After working out how to do a successful toe touch jump, he became assistant coach to Carla’s cheerleading team and after teaching himself about softball, he coached his other daughters’ teams for 15 years.
“Whatever they were into, I wanted to be part of it,” he said.
Chris Brown describes himself as a bonus dad. He’s been a father to Danny, 32, Jesse, 35, and Jason, 38, since they were 4, 6 and 9 years old.
Chris Brown, of Naperville, says he became a “bonus dad” to stepsons Danny, Jesse (seen here) and Jason Kidd when he married Tami Kidd-Brown, with whom he had daughter Rylee. (Chris Brown)
“I didn’t like being called stepdad because to me it has negative connotations so I thought bonus would be a better word,” said Brown, the creative arts director at Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church in Naperville.
Brown met the boys when he began dating their mother, Tami, to whom he’s now married.
“During our first year together, I only saw them randomly but after a while we realized we had to figure it out,” he said. “We’ve been married 26 years this year. Throughout the course of our marriage, we’ve always worked on what’s best for the boys.”
While they were dating, Tami told Chris she’d had a procedure done to prevent her having more children.
“I have always enjoyed being around kids and wanted my own,” he admitted, “but I told her (he was OK with that because) I could have married anyone and found out later we couldn’t have them.”
One day they were watching “Oprah” when a story came on about a doctor who had reversed procedures that stopped women from getting pregnant. After a successful operation, the couple added a daughter, Rylee, to complete their family.
“The doctor’s name was Berger and the anesthesiologist Dr. Fries, so we always joke we got a happy meal,” Brown says.
Timothy Clark is a single dad to 10-year-old Jacob and Zachary, 7. He shares custody with their mother but sees them every day but Monday when they talk over Zoom. They stay with him three weekends out of four each month.
Clark works for Sequoia Construction, which has built many of the stores in downtown Naperville. He’s co-chair of the Naperville Chamber of Commerce Business to Business Team.
“I think it’s hard with a workload being a single parent every day,” he said. “It would be easy to be complacent. Just to pick up and clean up and forget to acknowledge them. It’s important on a day you’re not seeing them to slow down and ask them about themselves because you’re just going through the motions otherwise.”
Both boys share their dad’s love of construction and enjoy playing with Legos.
“They grow up so quickly. I feel we have just had them yesterday,” he said. “You have to stop and smell the roses. You have to be there for them.”
Clark admits he sometimes feels guilty when he thinks he’d rather be relaxing, but he always tries to put the boys first.
“Sometimes I need to relax but it’s important to those kids that they have had interaction with their father,” he said. “It’s important to take that time.”
Brent Lindstrom says he doesn’t care how his family spends Father’s Day as long as they’re together. The vice president of an industrial packaging company, he has two children, Sasha, 21, and Vaughan, 20. They’re currently home from college and he says he always makes sure he puts down whatever he is doing to talk to them.
Brent Lindstrom, of Naperville, seen here with wife Patti and children Vaughn and Sasha during a vacation to Rome last year, says being present and paying attention are the two most important things he tries to do for his kids. (Brent Lindstrom)
“When they pop into my office, I stop and face them and talk to them,” he said. “I think it’s important to pay attention. It’s easy to get distracted. When they were little, and we were younger, it was sometimes total chaos. We said some day we will miss that. It’s hard to condition yourself. We were all kids once.
“At the ages they are now, they have our core values and beliefs. If we didn’t do a good job when they were younger, they wouldn’t have this core system.”
As the children near the end of college, Lindstrom says it’s fun to see them becoming their own people.
His wife Patty Edwards-Lindstrom says, “Being a great dad means caring, compassionate love every day, noticing your children and what they like, and being inquisitive about the different things that are meaningful to them.”
Hilary Decent is a freelance journalist who moved to Naperville from England in 2007. She can be reached at hilarydecent@gmail.com.
