Fatherhood should be a learned skill. What happens when the teacher quits?
—
It takes training to be good at just about anything in life. Whether it is your chosen profession, sports, cooking, or writing it takes practice and dedication. Another thing it takes is an example you can follow to find what works and what doesn’t. To become an expert or even proficient in any number of subjects you need training. I couldn’t do my job if no one had ever told me what to do and shown me how to do it correctly. I couldn’t write without years of English teachers and being able to read works from those who had already perfected their style.
My biggest responsibility in life is being a dad, and it’s also one thing in which I had absolutely no training
|
My biggest responsibility in life is being a dad, and it’s also one thing in which I had absolutely no training. The male figures in my life growing up, no matter how well-intentioned, we’re not my father. My dad left my life before I was born and had no intentions of coming back. The one person that was supposed to train me to be a man, and more importantly be a father, skipped out on his responsibilities.
I am acutely aware that my story isn’t unlike many others out there. There are also many circumstances that take a father out of the lives of his children, some legitimate and some not. Those of us growing up without a dad didn’t have the same life, but we did live some of the same experiences. More importantly, we missed out on the same experiences. Our dads didn’t come to birthday parties, school functions or other significant life events. They didn’t teach us to drive, or about girls and we didn’t get the opportunity to hear them yelling at us from the fence during a baseball game.
◊♦◊
My dad was an alcoholic that served a couple of tours in Vietnam. Emotionally and mentally he was burned up inside. Perhaps my childhood would have been worse with him in it; that’s a question that I will never be able to answer. An enormous portion of me would have liked the opportunity to find out. I get that he had issues and demons, and I understand that circumstances in his life put him on a path that alienated him from his family for decades. I just wish he had weighed all that out before he decided to become a father.
I had a stepdad for some years, and he did his best. He was an over the road trucker and was usually only home two nights a week. He spent a big portion of that time on his hobbies or getting hammered drunk. To say he and I didn’t have a lot in common is a profound understatement. I still have a tremendous amount of love for him in my heart, however.
All of these facts left me terribly unprepared to be a dad myself.
So what are we supposed to do? Those of us that have almost no training on how to be a father walk into a world that is foreign to us when we have children. Our knowledge of what a dad is supposed to be we’ve mainly seen on television and our friend’s fathers. Some of that information is good, but it is, unfortunately, incomplete.
◊♦◊
I told myself early on in life that if I had kids, they would know who their father was, and I would be a part of their lives no matter what. Even at a young age I knew the importance of a father being there for you. I understood, even more, the pain of their absence. With three sons now, I rededicate myself to that promise every day, equipped with the understanding that having them in my life is just as important as me being in theirs.
My first son experienced my learning the ropes, the miserable mess ups and the overcompensation for my inadequacies. To a great extent, he always will be a guinea pig, because he is going to be the first of my children to reach each new life experience. He and I have learned together, grown together and failed together. My overreactions, his tears, and our fears have taught us valuable life lessons. Most of those lessons I should have learned from my father.
I still have those moments, when one of my sons asks me a question and I have absolutely no idea what to say. It usually revolves around how to do something outdoorsy or athletically. A lot of those things I haven’t a clue about because I was never exposed to them. My grandmother and mom did all they could, but they weren’t hunters, fishermen, or sports fans. I can cook, though, and that’s pretty significant. Those tough questions still come, and if I can’t answer immediately, I research and learn myself until I can explain it to them.
That’s all I can do.
Too many of our kids today are fatherless because the men who should be there have run from their responsibilities.
|
Too many of our kids today are fatherless because the men who should be there have run from their responsibilities. Many of them have fled because the pressure of being unprepared. They believed they would fail, or didn’t understand the importance of staying. Our society shames those men, it berates them and demands financial restitution. What we don’t do as a society is train them to do better, and help them when they fail. We have turned fatherhood into nothing more than someone who pays the bills. It shouldn’t be about that.
◊♦◊
I am left to wonder how my life would have turned out differently if someone had just offered my father the help he so desperately needed. That didn’t happen, and it’s not happening today for thousands of children. We all know the importance of having a father in the household, we hear the statistics, and we see the results. We continue to watch it happen.
I met my father for the first time less than 24hours before he passed away. No questions got answered, there was no closure. I was again left feeling cheated, abandoned and unprepared. The scab of hurt and the pain of thirty-three years of abandonment was simply busted open.
We have to quit sending men into fatherhood untrained, then condemning them when they fail. Support, guidance, and a little advice go a long way. A helping hand doesn’t cost us anything, and the rewards for seeing a happy, secure child is life changing. You could also change a family for generations.
The decisions of my father and those around him will live with me forever. My children can suffer because of them or thrive in spite of them..
|
Nothing in our pasts can be altered; we can’t go back and redo it. The decisions of my father and those around him will live with me forever. My children can suffer because of them or thrive in spite of them. I can be what he trained me to be, or I can be the father my kids need. That is a choice that many of us as parents will have to make, due to our training or lack thereof.
You won’t get a second chance to decide.
The role of men is changing in the 21st century. Want to keep up? Get the best stories from The Good Men Project delivered straight to your inbox, here.
—
Photo: Flickr/David Amsler
“Too many of our kids today are fatherless because the men who should be there have run from their responsibilities” And what about the mom’s that pushed the dad’s out. A society that’s minimized fathers roles for countless years? You mentioned the % of women that initialize divorce but a caveat that is that most of these women work the system so as to deny fathers their rights and worse yet, stick to he dad’s for their $$. Let’s set divorce aside for a moment and look at what’s happen to the “family?” In some arena’s “marriage” is archaic. I… Read more »