Our writers have experienced many shades of fatherly love—conditional, unconditional, warmly comforting, wintry, authoritarian, nurturing, judgmental. For Father’s Day—this Sunday, June 17—we present these varied memories.

All of a sudden, I recognized the wisdom of the Windsors' concept of "the heir and the spare." Not that any child of ours would reap royal rewards. But it would certainly have softened the blow to have another child or two to focus on once my baby was gone.