Father versus man. Mother versus woman. I think women are a little more naturally wired to be good mothers than men are to be good fathers. So this is why I'm concentrating more on the fathers because I have been one since 1974 when my son was born and I still have a 13 year old biological daughter that my wife and I are still raising all these years later.
What inspired this article was when I walked out into my hot tub (outdoor spa) that my 20 year old daughter and my 35 year old son were vacating under the stars even though I really wanted them to stay and look up at the stars with me there too. However, they said they were melting from having been in there under the stars for a while already and needed to get out so the heat didn't get to them any more than it already had.
So I got into the spa at about 11 pm by myself and immediately started to feel that I was really upset that I had lost everything I enjoyed about myself as a man. After a couple of minutes of a really horrifying experience I realized this wasn't me but possibly what my son or daughter was experiencing instead. Because I had had to give up the whole man thing during my 30s too so I could be a better father. Neither my 35 year old son or my 20 year old daughter have had kids yet either. Whereas I have been raising someone under age 15 continuously since 1974 and it is now August 2009(a very long time). But since family has been the best thing in my life being a father has been the only role I have really enjoyed playing since about 26 years of age. Before then my role from age 15 to 25 (in the way I saw myself) was lover to quite a few women. But when my son was born I gave all that up(theoretically at least) so that my son could have a good life and future.
But in the end if one has a child by choice or not and one is male then this is always something to think about. If you have a child and you are not there fully as a father then your child might not prosper and survive in any or all ways. It is true that if you are with a woman that gets pregnant and she has the baby and never tells you there really is nothing you can ever do about that. Because of the 1960s and 1970s I wonder about that too myself because no one I knew back then ever used condoms and if the girl wasn't using birth control pills or an IUD or foam or a diaphram then I suppose almost anything was possible. But among the people I hung out with then VD, herpes, and stuff like that wasn't a problem yet until the late 1970s and early 1980s.
The real point of this article is to encourage men to take being a father seriously because if you don't your children may never make it on any level. In other words if you aren't there they may die, go crazy, be abused etc.
So taking your children's future seriously is very important if you have children or want to have children as a father.
I had an experience where after my son was born I slowly began to realize that the woman I was married to was someone I was very much in love with, was very intelligent, but also would never be a good mother to my son as her growing up time was very troubled. So even though she had a 170 IQ and was beautiful and everything I had ever dreamed of she was completely unsuited to be a mother because of her troubled upbringing. This was very heartbreaking for all three of us.
So, as a result of this I became a single father at age 29. I didn't stop loving my wife I just had to put his well being first and my wife agreed and gave me full custody in the divorce. She also saw she wasn't suited to mother him either.
During the separation and after the divorce I once again for the last time went from husband and father to Man and father for the last time. I said hello to my bachelor side that had languished since I was 25 and found that absolutely everything had changed now I was a single parent. I could no longer go for the hot wild babes because they were completely useless to my now 4 year old son and I had to think of his well being before my own.
From the moment I fully realized this I have been a father before I was a man always. That is not to say it wasn't and awful struggle for me. It's just to say that my son needed me to be a good father more than I needed to be a lady's man. So when I married again it was to a woman with 2 kids who was my age. So together we were a couple raising 3 kids from ages 5 to 8 years old.
Yours, mine and eventually ours when in 1989 my now 20 year old daughter was born. But the man I knew from age 15 to 25 and very briefly again between ages 29 and 32 when I married a second time was buried permanently at least until we divorced tumultuously in 1995. I quickly remarried and had another daughter so I might get custody of my then 5 year old but failed to get more than joint legal custody with my ex getting primary custody and I got about 10 weeks a year with my then 7 year old daughter. I suppose this experience with my now 20 year old daughter was the most painful of my life exceeding even the death of both of my parents. My parents were old and ready to die. My daughter was legally screwed out of having her father there. There is nothing that will ever make this right in my heart. The best I can do is to make a good relationship with my now 20 year old daughter while she is visiting me with her boyfriend now.
So, once again, if you are a father and you are not there and things don't go right you have no one to blame for what happens but yourself.
I did everything I could think of possible and legal including go bankrupt trying to get custody of my daughter. Though it was incredibly painful my daughter respects and understands that I almost died trying to do right by her and now we are finally trying to rebuild our father daughter relationship now she is 20.
So if you are a real father and your child is born or is about to be just know that fatherhood never ends until you die. And even then I believe you will be praying and helping your children and grandchildren from the other side.
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