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I spend a great deal of time and space in my writing discussing my relationships with my father and son. Raising a son in the twenty-first century is a challenging task, and much of my energy is spent making errors, correcting them, and trying to learn something along the way. I talk about my father because it was he who was my male role model. I talk about my son because, hopefully, I am his. I do not take this responsibility lightly, nor do I infer that I have things figured out.
What has gotten lost in the conversations that juxtapose my father and son are the women in my life. Too often we, as men, overlook the amazing contributions made by our mothers, our partners, our sisters, and our daughters. Even if we don’t overlook them, we fail to outwardly acknowledge them. This week I pay tribute to the women in my life.
To say that my mother has been the most influential woman in my life would in no way be hyperbolic. My mother is the type of woman who, if you told her on the first day of school (in August) that you had a field trip to the beach on April 5th, she would remind you on April 4th that you needed to make sure you knew where your goggles were. This, in an age before smartphones and google calendar. My mom remembered everything—and not because she didn’t have much on her own plate. She remembered because it was important to me. My mother is the type of person who fried two whole extra chickens on Sunday because my friends were in town, or made extra wings because my father and I fought over them. She also welcomed my grandmother into our home when she could no longer take care of herself. When I met my wife almost two decades ago, my mother welcomed her and her five-year-old daughter open-armed into the family. Immediately, she acted as if she had another grandchild and made my daughter feel welcomed, included. This was her greatest gift to me.
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I have two older sisters who were instrumental in teaching me how to be a man. The best way to learn about masculinity and doing right by women is by watching how your sisters are treated, and what they will tolerate. My sisters, through both word and actions, taught me from a young age how to treat people—specifically women. I thank them for this.
There is a saying, “Behind every good man is a better woman.” I think this statement is incomplete. I heard someone once say that in front of every great woman is a mediocre man who just takes credit for it. My wife, the most honest person I know, would probably agree with this, perhaps only if given a truth serum. The statement is so true. I am a student, and a teacher, and a columnist, and a business owner. As busy as that sounds, there is no way I could survive, let alone succeed without my wife. She is the bedrock that our household rests on, and the glue that holds it together. She is the person who works her own job, interns, goes to graduate school, and still manages to feed us and raise two well-balanced children.
As a writer, I am unable to find a word, or words, that do justice to the immense role my wife plays in my life. Giving it words would do her a disservice. Even after the list I just mentioned, she still has time and energy to support my work, to read my drafts, to tell me “I love this piece” or “This isn’t your best work”—I get that one more often—and to do all of these things from such a place of love. I could go on but she would tell me to stop here, so I will.
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Which brings me to my daughter. When I met my wife, her daughter had just turned five. I love children but I had no idea what went into actually raising one. Turns out, way more than you might think, or way more than I thought at the time. Over the last 15 years, her daughter, who is now our daughter, and I have struggled. We have fought to find our hierarchy in the household, our place in the world, and how to coexist with each other. She has hated me. She has told me, “You’re not my father.” She has shut me out. More importantly, she has loved me. She has held my hand when we rode the ski lift to the top of the mountain and I was so scared I almost passed out. She willingly introduced me to her friends and her boyfriends. She calls me her dad. She was my teacher in learning to be a father. We went down the road of growth together, and it was ugly and long and twisted and scary and beautiful and perfect. If she were not in my life, it would be incomplete.
As fathers, we often carry invisible burdens. We feel it is our role to provide and protect and guide and teach and play role model. These roles and duties are incredibly important. However, we often fail to recognize these duties are never done alone. These burdens are never ours to carry by ourselves. We may have learned so much of our masculine ideology from our fathers, and in turn, we do our best to teach them to our sons. This is our role as fathers and one we should take very seriously.
But we need the women around us. We always have.
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Photo credit: Getty Images