What are the attitudes in Carter's "I Wanted to Share my Father's World"?

This poem is one of the many on the subject of parents and
children, although it is unusual inasmuch as the poet was President of the United States
from 1977 to 1981. The point is that no one is immune from the difficulties and pains of
life, and that the experiences described here are common to all—secretary,
businessperson, teacher, student, painter, president. The attitudes described by
President Carter’s speaker are those of uncertainty resulting from a boy wishing to
please his father and being unsure of whether that is actually taking place. The speaker
states that “This is a pain I mostly hide” to indicate (a) that the nature of the poem
is to reveal and to confess his long-standing attitudes, and (b) that to a high degree
he has become reconciled to his father and has “put away childish things” (see I
Corinthians 13:11).