Cat's in the Cradle by Harry Chapin

“Cat’s in the Cradle” live performance

Whether we like it or not, most of us are more like our parents than we’d like to admit.

If you spend enough time with a friend, you pick up their mannerisms and perspectives. For many of us there is no one that we’ve spent more time with in our lives than our parents. It’s only logical that in many ways we are like our parents.

I’m in my late 20s, and I’ve noticed my friends and I seem to talk about our parents more than we did in college. College creates the illusion that you are on your own, when most of us truly aren’t. When you get out to the real world, many of the safety-nets of college are gone. I never realized how much my parents and college took care of for me until I truly had a place of my own and was working a job full time.

Living life as an adult has made it easier for me and my friends to relate to our parents. I’m paying bills just like they are, dealing with taxes and having to make difficult decisions just like they did when they were my age and continue to make at their age. When my dad was 10 years old, he may have been very much like me when I was 10 years old but I didn’t know my dad when he was a kid so I don’t have a frame of references. However, I have seen my parents go through life as adults so when I make decisions and do “adult” things the similarities come across clearly.

“Cat’s in the Cradle” explores the idea of children taking after their parents from the perspective of a father. Harry Chapin’s most memorable song is one of those songs in our popular culture that goes against what we expect. There are not that many songs that deal with the idea father and son relationships.

The father in “Cat’s in the Cradle,” is simply too busy to spend time with his son. In the first two verses of the song, the father misses the son learning to walk and talk. Later the son asks to play ball but the father says he is too busy and promises and that there will be time later for them to get together and have a good time.

The son grows up and goes to college. When he visits his dad, the tables turn as the father wants to spend time with the son, while all the son wants is to borrow the car and go out with his friend. The father retires and the son gets married and has kids of his own. One day the father calls his son and asks if they can get together and the son answers that there is too much stuff going on with his family and job to see his father.

There is no anger between the son and the father in this song. There is a feeling of disappointment when the son is turned down and later the father. The son states in the first too verses that “I’m gonna be like you dad.” His “smile never dimmed” when the father says he is too busy. There is a sense that the son understands even at a young age that the father would truly like to spend more time with the son but feels that he simply cannot. When the son later says he is too busy to see his dad, he reassures his dad that “it’s been sure nice talking to you.” Even though the son states that he is too busy, he feels a need to express to his dad that it’s been nice talking.

The father realizes that the son’s declaration, that he will grow up to be like his dad comes true, but not in the way that the dad imagined. The dad seems to mourn the fact that the son grew up to be like the father focusing on the fact that the son just like the father simply doesn’t have time to spend with him.

Instead of anger, there is a feeling of guilt that the father holds. He feels that he let down his son by not taking the time to spend time with him. The fact that his son throughout his life never seemed to get anger at his dad only make the guilt worse.

Even though the father’s realization is depressing, the song ends on a sense of hope, “when you coming home son? I don’t know when, but we’ll get together then son, you know we’ll have a good time then.” I like to think that after the father made his realization that he talks to his son and they both make an effort to change not only for each other but also for the son’s children.

Many credit “Cat’s in the Cradle” for having a life-changing effect. This song has helped people realize the power they have in their children’s lives and the inevitability that we all have in following in our parent’s footsteps. .

Harry Chapin, said that he thought “Cat’s in the Cradle” was a scary song. At it’s heart, it’s a disturbing idea that the worst of us will be passed down and that we are destined to repeat the sins of our fathers.

I chose to look at this song another way.

I have no doubt that most of who I am, I got from my parents. I like to think that I’ve reciprocated back to them the best of what they gave me. As dark as “Cat’s in the Cradle,” is, it comforts me in the idea that in the inevitability of picking up negative things from our parents; we also pick up things that we admire about our parents

When I listen to this song, I am reminded that the things I admire about my father truly are within me. Whenever I do something or say something that reminds me of my dad at first, I’m a little freaked out, but then I smile to myself laugh and thank God that he is always with me.