Father’s Day 2026
Sometimes I try to imagine what it would be like to have a father who did not want to be a father. When I do, I try to imagine a father totally unlike my father, Herbert Stein. May I give you a few examples?
I recall in 1953 and 1954 sitting on dark green couches in our “recreation room” in front of a roaring fireplace watching hour after hour of Victory at Sea.
In about early 1973, there were new reports that the Department of Defense was going to try to test various shapes of bullets by taking in dogs from animal shelters and shooting them with newly shaped bullets. I was horrified. I called my father, Herbert Stein, then Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. He was horrified, too. He called his pal, “Cap” Weinberger, then at the Office of Management and Budget.
Mr. Weinberger agreed that it was a terrible idea. Within a day, the plan had been shelved.
At about the same time in history, I was a speechwriter for Mr. Nixon in the White House. I had an especially complicated question about economic history to include in a speech. There was no internet then and the research library in the Executive Office Building was modest.
I walked up the three flights to my father’s office in the southwest corner of the top floor of the EOB. My father was as usual hard at work. I asked him, if he had nothing more pressing to do, if he could find the answer. My father looked at me coolly and asked, as he inhaled his Kent so thoroughly that he turned one third of it to ash, “Benjy, what do you think I have to do that’s more important to me than helping my only son?”
Many years later, a financial power whom I had often criticized came to the think tank where my father was a researcher. He wanted to talk to other economists about his story, and why I was wrong about him. My father told the head of the think tank that he did not want to attend. The head of the think tank asked my father what if the financial power could give a long “convincing” talk about how he worked.
My Pop said he still did not want to attend. “I don’t care what he says,” said my Pop. I trust my son.
I could give you many more stories. I recall in 1953 and 1954 sitting on dark green couches in our “recreation room” in front of a roaring fireplace watching hour after hour of Victory at Sea. The fire was blazing with logs I had brought in from a pile of firewood in our backyard.
Pop explained every battle, every campaign in detail.
I still remember it all.
Now, night after night, my wife and I watch documentaries about World War II on TV and I know enough to explain it all in detail, on a foundation my father built.
READ MORE from Ben Stein:
My Money Isn’t What It Used to Be
A Bueller, Bueller Anniversary
