Cats In The Cradle - Harry Chapin (HD With Lyrics)

I wish I cpuld find a lyric video that is not triggering. This video is not watchable.

So true. Being retired military, I deeply regret all the times I was not there for my sons. Now old, karma has given me much time for reflection. Fathers, don't be like me:spend time with your children. They are a gift for such a short time.

the 'mehdi' song

It tells the story of my father and me!

For all of the useless Father’s all over the world. Most of you should spare a thought for your kids lives, that you’ve completely ruined

miss you pops :(

Relationships between Father & Son and Mother & Son should NEVER be messed up by EXTENDED FAMILIES & their unnecessary opinions. I will die saying so.

Wish I had known.

Am I seriously gonna cry because of a song for the first time?

Man it hits home... fuck ..

I wonder why it wasn’t ever made a female/mom version🤔

RIP harry Chapin! The man who wrote and sang this song.

One of the most beloved musicians and i think every father needs to listen to this song its vital

Ooo noo right in the feels.

I have cried a lot with this song, it is the first time that I listen to it carefully, it is so beautiful

omg i cant stop crying hearing this song wow so special to me thanks for posting it havent heard it in awhile...so deep this song love harry chapins music

I think this is unfortunately all to common. Our culture values work and success, but those aren't going to truly make us happy.

I think what it is is that you can hear the song so many times and yes its great and all but when you see the actual lyrics even tho you know them it really pulls on your heart strings ...

That poor accountant's son, he'll get to play catch with his dad and listen to his favourite Harry Chapin song together one day. Alas, the lyrics are too relevant.

A song that truly tugged at heartstrings ... reminded me of my dad

Read this song in grade 5 now iam in 9th grade .I have not lost anyone but it just hits differently.JUST EMOTIONAL BREAKDOWN۔🇵🇰❤

i love this song it reminds me of my son

Everytime I hear the line. "What I'd like is to borrow the car. See you later can I have them please? I have to myself. It's just a short and quick Lil line for dramatic effect. To help drive the narrative. But at the same time. If I had ever asked my dad for the keys like that? Whoa boy! My ass would be airborne!

I have 3 daughters but this song still talks to me. Should be required listening for first time parents to be.

The song brings back awesome childhood memories!… and also remind me that things didn’t go the way I thought they would.🚀✨🚀✨🚀

Bella quanto vera

I see the meaning in this song completely different from most. I see it as the father being so dedicated and strong role model that it is just part of the circle of life and dogmatic that there must be this sacrifice.

just so moving!let's take the time!

I shouldn't be writing this, but I need an outlet. My dad walked out when I was about five. That was in 1970. When I was in the 4th grade this song came out. At the time I was the little boy in the song. My father lived in town but never came to see me, ever. I only "met" him at his mom's funeral, about eight years after he had left. After that, I was the boy with the ball. I saw my dad, but only a few times a year. Meanwhile, I was getting involved with a few activities, like Cub Scouts. My mother never supported me as she did my younger sister. She went to all my sister's things, never went to mine, and always made excuses about it. She never really played with me. I taught myself to ride a bike in the alley behind our house, alone. Later, I taught myself to roller skate, again, by myself. I was an angry little son of a bitch, and I was always in trouble. I got put on Ritalin and had to see a Chile Psychologist every week from the 3rd grade through the 8th grade.

I wanted nothing more than for my Daddy to come home and take up with Mama again. Dad's new wife would get drunk and call us kids while my mom was at work. She would ask whether we wanted to see our daddy. We would holler and cry and she would laugh at us and taunt us. (I don't know whether my weak father knew about this, but does that really matter?)

Anyway, Daddy passed away the day after Christmas of 1992. I had a lot of issues with him and we were very slowly working things out. I bent over backward to not punch him in the face and scream at him. I let him fumble around and try to make a connection with me, try to create something that he had killed years before, but that we BOTH needed and wanted to exist. He wrote me a letter, which his wife told me was something she had only seen him do about four times in the decades they had been together. In it, he claimed he wanted to sit down and talk to me about Vietnam and his coping with his nightmares since then, his drug use, his cancer survival, and his behavior. He wanted to talk to me about leaving us. We had worked toward this goal from about 1978 up to 1992, and I was super excited to finally get to calmly have it out with him, and tell him how he made me feel… you know, cry, maybe holler at him some… a sort of personal catharsis.

Then he died. This was a hard thing for me to cope with, but I was finishing up college on my GI Bill after having served in the military for a few years. A few months after he died I got a job. I still have it, 28 years later, as a matter of fact. When I moved I sort of left Daddy behind me, where I used to live, like old luggage. I said goodbye to him in private, and I packed my U-Haul and drove away.

My mother and I had a horrible relationship that ceased to exist for years at a stretch. I remember an eight-year stretch where I shut her out. It was the healthiest time of my life. I thrived. I was happier than I had been when she was a regular part of my life. I hated her. I felt like shutting her out not only made me happier, but it was punishing her for all the terrible things she did as I was growing up.

She died six days ago, and due to COVID my wife and I lost about 65% of our income in mid-2020. We have had a hell of a bad time trying to get by. My mother had tossed the straw that broke this camel's back in June of 2016. I won't say what she did, but it was bad enough that after my ten-hour drive to see her I stood on her front porch telling her that she was creating this situation and that this was the last straw, that if she did not fix it this would be the last time she ever saw me in this life. She was fine with that. So I turned around and drove ten hours back home.

About six months ago my sister got in touch with me. My mother had created a situation and then lied to me about my sister's participation in it, so when I shut mom out I also shut out my only sibling. So my sister had to try and find my personal information to look me up, as it had been over five years since I had spoken to either of them. She told me that Mama wanted to talk to me, that she had a terminal illness and was doing poorly. So I acquiesced and started my relationship with her again. I also had a long talk with my sister where we discovered our separation had been my mom's doing.

I have maintained a very warm relationship with my mother ever since. But my financial situation, the situation with my mentally ill wife, our vehicle situation, etc. combined to prevent me from going home to see Mama. I made it there, only to have my hotel not have my reservation, my sick mother not being willing to let me (or anyone) into her home, and after that damned ten-hour drive having no place to sleep. (I have medical issues that make me unwilling to stay at someone's house. It is my house, a hotel, or nothing. I am too old and frail to bend in this regard. So I found a hotel way beyond my means, holed up for the night, and in frustration and anger, headed home the next day.

I did not get to see Mama. Even after that herculean effort. It just did not happen. She did not seem to be all that put out by it, either, despite my efforts to see her. I was pissed off and hurt by this.

After I got back we talked about my trying again this summer or fall, and then she died.

I can't afford to drive out again for the memorial service. I was able to afford the failed trip out there, but it caused my wife and me to miss a lot of meals; we are that broke. Unemployment Insurance ran out a year ago. My wife freaked out and started living in her car. It was a terrible year. And now that my wife is okay again and living at home, more or less normally, we are so broke that it seems like the end of everything to us. So I can't go home this one, last, important time. I just can't swing it. People have offered to help financially, but I would have to rent a car for a week, stay at a hotel for a week, and eat three times a day for a week, all the while leaving my wife at home alone for a week. This cannot happen.

So here I sit in my moldering pile of a house with my crazy wife and my dead mother, with my poor sister having to handle all this alone, and my being stuck here, unable to pay my final respects.

Then this old song, so very important to me since it first came out so long ago, popped up in my Recommended list here on YT. And I have listened to it like ten times and cried all damned morning.

No matter how much you resent your lousy parents, please try to let them win. Keep them in your life even if they are complete creeps.

Once they are gone they are gone. You will never hear their voices again.

I miss my Mama and Daddy so much right now. I hate that our relationships were as F-ed up as they were. I know it was not my fault; I'm not blaming myself. But both of my lousy, uncaring parents were a product of their experiences, which were pretty bad, and they were just kids when I came along, that little surprise that ended their childhood without warning. I am 57 years old now and see my Mom at 19 and my Dad at 21 as being stupid, headstrong, willful kids who suddenly found themselves married, with Daddy in the Marine Corps and in Vietnam. After he got back nothing worked out right for them. I just happened to be in the line of fire a lot of the time. Mama, as a kid, resented me, I think. She loved my sister so much, but I was always kept at arm's length. I still hold a grudge for that, but at my current age, I can understand where my mom was coming from, even if I disagree with it. I have never had children because I deeply feared being a parent like mom or dad.

Anyway, people. If you are still reading this: mend fences in your family, even if you know you are right and they are wrong. Just mend them. It sucks to become an orphan at 57. It is an empty feeling. It is scary. The one person you know will always be there, who in your mind is immortal, WILL die one day. And then there is nothing. It is over.

Mend your fences. Hug your parents. They are going to die.

I am sorry for the length of this comment. I am sorry it is so poorly disorganized. I am sorry that it is written while I am crying and not thinking straight. I am sorry my mom died and I can't go home. I am sorry we never fixed our relationship. Now that can never happen.

Peace to you all.

this song is shit bc i have to make a school project about it

I cherished every moment with both my sons growing up, and we have a bond today that can't be broken and they are both adults now. I cherished the moments they were kids, but I am still cherishing the moments we share today, I am blessed to have them in my life still today and they tell me they love me every day and aren't too old to give me hugs - because without that life would be empty! This song is very sad and should be a warning to all parents, make time for your kids, splash in puddles, feed the ducks, go to the park and get in the sandbox with them - it also helps us as well.

This song always makes me cry and think of my beautiful son and the father I never was, don't know if I'll ever see him again, it tears me apart inside.

One of the greatest songs of all time....Melancholy but with lyrics that tell a very important message. Sometimes "then" never comes.

Yeah this song hits different when your past the age of 30. 😒 Repeat the cycle

This was the song that played on the radio while I grieved for my father driving to and from work in the dark of winter. I love this song, but I do cry

Appropriate music 🎵

Thats so sad😢
But t was a good song melodically 😂

My dad was a dead beat dad, never there for me. But he was the only dad I ever knew. He was hooked on heroin and he chose that life. But I know that he regretted his choice. At the end of his life he apologized for his decision and told me that he always loved me. Those few words made everything that happened in the past go away. He was the man I remember as my daddy. He was there for me even though his own life was fading away from him. Last time we actually spoke, he threw me the finger and I told him, fuck you too Dad, I'll see you in 2 days. And he just smiled at me, winked his eye and blew me a kiss....

I'm not a dad. Nor do I have any kind of relationship with my dad. But this song moves me to tears.
P. S. Why have the Bee Gees at the end of such a song? Kinda took away from the emotions at the very ending.

A LIFETIME
In
Three minutes and fifty three seconds.

The most real life song for a boy..period.

My father was just like that he never had time with me he worked hard and take bets and so I quit school to help my family with money we never seen eye to eye then he retired then I thought I'd make my dad proud of me by going in the Army my dad was proud of me for. going back to school when I graduated from college we became strange to each other when mom passed away my dad and I became friends I miss you mom I miss you dad I'm still your son love you and mom miss you both

Rip 10-40 on a tiger shark, Horseneck Beach, 2004. Murdered, nephew of future cousin, by forced marriage from Massachusetts state police, Northampton office. I gave the transgender bitch Lou Gehrig's after that, on a personal visit, as a pot dealer spy; Officer Gutwill.

Looked this up bc my 23 year old lives less than 10 minutes away but never comes to see me… doesn’t call. Nothing. Have no idea what I’ve done other than raised her to the best of my ability with joint (physical) custody. Sacrificed a State job (due to crazy hours and not enough seniority). I was far from perfect. But, I was there for every important moment in her life… and tbh, I’m tired of trying. I love her more than anything in this world but, if I’m not important enough for her to even call occasionally. It’s a one way relationship. Breaks my heart.

This video reminds me of my grandmother's hand in mine.
My uncle murdered her
Then my mother's hand in mine was much more inflated from the antifreeze from the person that murdered her.
Pictures last forever.

Listening to and playing this on my guitar while in the middle of a contentious divorce/custody battle. Longest I’ve gone without seeing my 2 1/2 year old boy after my wife up and moved 2 hours away with him. Fighting to get him back. All I can say is whether you’rev in an in-tact home with you kids or not, cherish and maximize every moment, especially as a father. Completely irreplaceable. There is nothing as fulfilling as quality time with your kids…. And if you don’t agree, you’re doing something wrong. Also makes me realize as a child and young adult, how much I took my dad for granted. Imagine having insight from a very early age that life is fleeting, your father is irreplaceable, and all your time spent together could be loving and supporting one another… God I wish I had more time with him… one day, we will all cease to be with our kids and our parents but in spirit. Cherish the time you have on this rock together and if the bond is broken, it’s up to you to fix it

This song makes me appreciate my father a lot more

This is the song my dad told me to learn for his funeral someday

Rings a bell❤❤❤

This is such a boomer song. So you have a father who didn't make time for his son and never developed a meaningful relationship. Yet somehow at the end of the song, it's the kid's fault for not having a meaningful relationship with his father? Let's write a song about that and pretend it is some sort of masterpiece!