Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Happy Tuesday!
So I was watching The View today, and DL Hughley was one of the guest co-hosts. He said a few things that I found to be interesting...and I wanted to get your take on it.
First, he said that "intelligence is over-rated" when it comes to dating and marriage. Basically, he said that if a woman has big breasts and is quiet, he could fall in love with her. "I love you, I promise you I do!" were his exact words :-)
He also said that all women want a rich man. He made the point that not all women will get one, and noted that we'd still marry a non-rich man if we're in love - but according to him, all women WANT one.
Joy Behar objected to that, and said it was just as easy to fall in love with a poor man as it was to fall in love with a rich one. That may be true...but which would you prefer?
The basic topic of discussion was about what we seek in a partner and why. Men want to be with a beautiful woman, no matter how "smart" she may be, and women want to be with a man who can provide for her and her family, no matter how smart he is...or in some (most) cases...even what he looks like. Agree?
It was suggested that women have an inherent need or desire to seek a man who can provide for her and her family. Women instinctively want to be protected and cared for - so it's in our "nature" to seek out the alpha male who can provide and protect - and in most cases, that means money. My question to you all is - do you believe that to be true - and if so, at what point does wanting a man to provide for you turn into "gold digging?"
It was also suggested that men don't necessarily care how intelligent a woman is, especially if she's beautiful. DL said men need women to appreciate them and make them feel good about themselves; and as long as she cheers him on and validates him, she doesn't necessarily need to work or be smart. He will gladly be "the man" as long as he has someone beautiful to come home to who makes him feel like "the man" that he is.
So tell me...what say you? Any truth to ANY of this - or is it all nonsense? Or a bit of both. Let's hear it!
Go!
-b
Monday, June 21, 2010
Happy Monday!
I hope you all had a great weekend, and I hope all the dads out there had a wonderful Father's Day! So much so, that I wanted to pass along yet another blog by an awesome father...with a slightly different take. I wish I had an extra day last week to get this one in, but who said we have to smoosh all the daddy posts into one week of the year!? So with that said, here's another great blog by another great daddy - Mr. E. Payne from Makes Me Wanna Holler!
'Twas a few days before Father's Day and all through the house,
Everyone was a sleep except this lively mouse.
I stared at the ceiling, wide awake as could be,
Getting up several times with the urgent need to pee.
But that's not what had me wide-eyed in the night,
It was what transpired a few hours earlier, a very caustic fight
Between a teen at the end of his rope, the victim of course...
Enough with the rhyming. Before the clock struck midnight, my son very clearly informed me (who at the time was boiling over with frustration) that I wasn't his dad. I was just his step-dad.
Here's a little secret: I've been dreading those words for years.
But I laughed. Can you believe it? Maybe it was a defense mechanism; maybe it was because I had many more words to say than him. Maybe my bottle was corked just a bit tighter than his in my effort to always embrace reason and seek the positive.
But that doesn't mean I didn't react.
The Man caught an adrenaline rush, pushed the Dad and Husband out of the room, and stared down flesh not even half my age. The flimsy knife the boy had brought to the Man's gunfight broke against the man's older, wrought-iron skin.
The boy...ahh, the boy...a boy I've known for a very, very long time....the boy in the big body...he's still just a boy...he proved that more than ever before...
Then it was the Man's turn...
But the Wife was there to keep the The Man from pulling his trigger, neutralizing and reminding him where he was and who he also is. She went to find the Dad even though it took her nearly four hours to do so. I assume she probably suffered the most in the midst of the chaos. I apologized, but she insisted I did nothing wrong.
The Wife convinced the Husband to come to bed. But the Man couldn't sleep and the Dad all but disappeared until the sun rose. He washed his face, shaved and emerged to face the day at peace and filled with the awareness of the teachable moment he now stands in and the structure that must now and forevermore be employed. Eerily, I'm at peace. I kinda figured the day would come. You just know as an outsider trying to become an insider (even once you're inside) that the day will come --- whether it's sooner or later. God bless those who've remained unscathed.
I am the step-dad: The dad who STEPPED-UP to do what another man never had the courage to pursue. Although meant as a slight. I actually take it as a compliment. Go figure?
My hat is off to you.
Be blessed.
- E. Payne
Friday, June 18, 2010
TGIF!
Closing out the week is our resident "playlist" expert and NOLA boy - D to the Moe! Thanks again to all of the fathers who have shared their experiences with us this week - and who reminded us that there ARE fathers in our communities who love, take care of, guide, teach, protect, nurture and uplift our children every day. I am in awe of you all, and feel truly inspired by your words and sentiments. I am blessed to know each of you! Your children couldn't ask for better Daddies!
This Little Girl's Daddy...by DMoe.
As Father's Day approaches, I'm reminded of all the reasons why I'm fortunate to be "this little girl's daddy." My daughter and I have a pretty good understanding of how things work. For example, if she and I are riding in the car, and we hear Prince's "Pop Life," I sing Prince's part - "Don't ya know straight hair ain't got no curl..," and she chimes in with Wendy's background, "No curl!" It's automatic.
But there are many other nuances that make us who we are. For all the challenges I face as I do my best to raise her, it's the little things that make the journey a fun, rewarding one. I'm invested in her future in many ways other than the 529 College Savings Plan, or the allowance she's told to save for books when she's on her way there. One of the most important things that I'm trying to teach is the approach to life.
If you try your best, and do things with flair and a fervent attitude, you will go that much farther in life. So, if you want to collect Barbies, learn all there is to learn about Barbies and become the expert in your 3rd grade class. Collect them all, and pay meticulous attention to keeping up with the clothes that came with each one. Naked Barbies on your floor are simply "not acceptable." She has yet to nail that one - and as a dad, how they ALWAYS end up naked is beyond me - (she prefers to say "between outfits")...but I digress.The concept has many sides, but I think you get the point. On the soccer field, I invest in her psyche OFF the field by downloading as much "winning attitude" into her as possible in the hopes that it translates ON the field. We watch tons of soccer on TV (she loves Telemundo games best, because the commentators say "GOOOOOOOOAAAAAAL!" when someone scores). We play FIFA Soccer on PS3, we work out with soccer balls on the practice fields long after the team is gone, and we are constantly talking about pretty much ANY "kick-ass" individual player in sports and how they worked said ass off to be the best...(but not in those exact words).
It's the "work ethic" side of it all. Here's a line overheard recently:
- "Sure, another girl may be bigger than you, and she may have played longer than you, but NOBODY should ever be able to outwork you. EVER. If you keep doing that, you'll always be successful. Got it?"
- "Got it."
So at the games, while other parents say, "good try" or "good job" arbitrarily when their kid displays any kind of effort whatsoever (or lack thereof - I HATE that), I choose a different route that my girl responds to each and every time. When she is making plays, and fighting hard, I say so by calling her number out loud. "Good work 16!" But, when she's getting outplayed or out-hustled, I'm equally encouraging in the same regard. "Let's GO 16, pick it up!"
And that's the thing...I love her enough to be hard on her, and I'll never settle for anything less than her best. EVER.
She knows my voice, but she knows it's me by exactly what is said. This past season, I watched her turn on the juice time and time again after I yelled her number. But then, something odd happened. We would talk after the games about what went well and what didn't, and she said "I heard you Daddy, before you even said anything!" Wow. For the long journey ahead, each little bit helps tremendously - because she's starting to hear daddy's voice before things happen. Golden.
Prince music and soccer aside, as stated earlier, my daughter and I have a good understanding. She knows that if we're playing, we play hard and have the most fun that we can have with everything. She also knows that I DON'T play when it comes to her schooling, how she treats people, and her conduct as a young girl that grows into a teenager, that becomes a young lady, that turns into a woman.
My wish is for my child to be the best she can be at whatever she chooses to be. Mind you, I don't have pie-in-the-sky parenting dreams of her being successful just so I can tell my friends that she is, but more that she reaches the true potential that she's indeed capable of. I believe it's just the job that comes with being "DADDY."
Many times, fatherhood is missed in the celebration of a person's success or an understanding of their failures in life. As I live every day, I try to see each day as an opportunity to give my daughter the best that I can give, which hopefully will lead to her blossoming into the best she can be. Recently, she and I took on a project to build an Eiffel Tower made of Legos. The 3, 872 pieces and 3 main sections divided into 3 instruction books (80 pages in each) was a huge undertaking for the two of us. While my patience was tested with the construction and supervision of this 8-year old who did half the work, the project brought us closer in a brand new way. By the end, we were hugging like we won the Super Bowl, and the fact that she saw the "Taj Mahal" in Lego's and said, "WE HAVE TO DO THAT ONE NEXT!" is exactly the point of why we took it on.
We can accomplish anything, and long after I'm gone, I hope that the ideal lives on within her spirit.
I thought it was a good idea to videotape our work, so that for years to come, she could have it to remember how we accomplished something so big together. In the spirit of this Father's Day, I'd like to share that with this blog. Hopefully, you will find it as inspiring as it still is for me. Each time I watch, I'm reminded of how vital my work is, and how much it means to be "this little girl's daddy."
Happy Father's Day to each and every one.
Your friend and mine,
- DMoe
Thursday, June 17, 2010
The day my daughter came into the world, a rush of emotions overwhelmed me. I fought back the tears as I thought of all the women that had played a special part in my life. I was raised by my grandmother and mother, and I have a sister that means the world to me. I married the most wonderful woman - and now I was staring at a new little lady that I knew would be the next special woman in my life. As I cut the umbilical cord, I promised myself that I was going to be the best dad that I could be.
My wife and I are going on five years of marriage, and the addition of our baby girl Leah made the relationship and marriage even sweeter. I could not imagine life with out these two beautiful ladies. I am watching my daughter grow now and there is nothing more rewarding. She is such a little character and she has captured my heart in so many ways. When I walk into her room in the morning and she opens up her arms so that Daddy can take her out of the crib, it melts my heart. When my wife and I drop her off to the babysitter in the morning, she screams, "Goodbye Daddy!" and blows me kisses...which I hold on to so I can have a better day.
My little princess has me wrapped around her little finger - and this PROUD Daddy is not embarrassed to admit it. She is at the age where she is always getting herself into trouble and is practically destroying the house. She recently broke my flat screen TV, which caused me to become very angry. But when I looked into those eyes, I could do nothing but smile. Oh well...I guess I'll be the first one on line at the 4th July Sales. :-)
I sometimes put pressure on myself when I think about the life I want to give my daughter as I watch her grow - we live in a difficult world. I pray every day that God continues to give me the strength so that I can be there to guide her and make her a strong woman like the ones who raised me to become a strong man and father.
Happy Father's Day to all the Daddies and to the mothers who have played that role since the beginning of time.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Happy Hump Day!
Today is Day 3 of our Father's Day posts this week. Without further adieu, give it up to Austin "Powerz" Williams - Daddy extraordinaire to Jada, Aaron and baby Sophia! Let's go!
I am a Father. Better yet, I’m a Daddy...by Austin Williams.fa•ther : A male person whose sperm unites with an egg, resulting in the conception of a child
I have 3 wonderful children. With that said, I am a Father. Better yet, I’m a "Daddy." When someone says you fathered a child, your responsibility can stop there and you will have still “fathered” that child. Think about it……
I can go on and on about how my kids instill more in me than I instill in them; how they teach me to be humble and grateful for what I have; how to enjoy every moment because time stops for no one. Every crawl, every step, every word creates a new memory that causes you to appreciate life that much more. But I won’t.
What I will do is tell you that I have lived many lives, and like Cable Guy, had to get a divorce in order to give my children a better life. I also tried to work on a marriage that was not meant to be. I listened to others and tried to stick it out for the kids, but I too realized they would not truly appreciate “daddy” if he did not have anything left to give. By mutual agreement, we separated - and now my kids get to enjoy their father...I mean Daddy. They let me know that in their own way: Gymnastics when my daughter says “Look at me DADDY.”
Being a Daddy is so important. This is how our children develop their values, how they learn between right and wrong. For a daughter, they learn how a woman is supposed to be treated. For a son, how to treat a woman. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Personally, I knew it would be hard to allow another man to be a father figure in my children’s lives, but I knew him for many years. We have a mutual respect for each other. I still know they are getting a better life than if their mom and I stayed miserable together. She has moved on, and so have I. Now my kids have a beautiful step-mom-to-be who helps me be a better Daddy as well. My life could not have turned out any better.
Happy Daddy Day to all you daddies doing the best you can. That’s all we can ask for.
And of course, a special shout-out goes to the man that made me the man I am today - MY DAD!!!!!!!!!
- Powerz
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
We're continuing with the Father's Day blog posts this week, and Day 2 belongs to DMurray! Let's go!
Cherish Being a Dad...by DMurray.
It’s Father’s Day so let me get straight to the point. After all, that is what Dads do right? If you are father, you have an awesome responsibility. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. It takes a man to raise a boy into a man. I know single mothers all over the world are doing the best they can. Hats off to them, great job! But MEN are needed to raise boys to be men, PERIOD. We are supposed to be the standard bearers for fellowship with other men, help them negotiate life’s troubled waters and how to deal with the opposite sex. Example: even though I am no longer married to the my son’s mother (aka the practice wife), he has NEVER seen me yell at her, call her out of her name or even argue with her. Why? That is not his business. A child should never be exposed to that. Let your kids be kids and stop exposing them to adult concepts so early in life.
“Grandchildren are the crown of the aged, and the glory of children is their fathers.”- Proverbs 17:6
Translation: Dads - you are accountable. Children are your GLORY. Come on Dads...that means when you are old and gray, they are a reflection of you. You can divorce your wife...but not your kids. I honestly think that is the problem these days. Parents want to be friends with their children instead of RAISING THEM. Parents are teachers, counselors, nurses, chefs, mentors and everything in between; but they ARE NOT buddies with their children. People want to be liked so much they have let this impair their ability to be parents. Don’t confuse being in agreement with being friends. When kids become adults, they can understand this and at some point decisions need to be made. They are made by parents, period. As difficult as this may be for me to establish for a summer, I plan to do so. He's got chores, homework (yes, even in the summer), and bedtime is 8pm. These things sound simple - but believe me, when I hear some parents talk about their kids, they cannot grasp this concept of discipline. Children cry out for parenting.
My favorite time of the year is Father’s Day. This is more important to me than my own birthday. As a man on his second marriage, I am in a unique position. Some people think it is easy for a man to leave the marriage even when there are children involved. I can tell you that it is not. I feel the same failings that women do when it's over. However, I had to move on and still be a good father.
I love my boy. There is nothing I would not do for him. He is everything to me and there is nothing cool about missing out on the joys that I have missed out on this year. He is growing right before his stepfather’s eyes. Not mine. That hurts. This yea, I missed his football and basketball games, his first theatrical performance and numerous academic award banquets. We is a weed - all of 50 inches tall, close to 100lbs and wears a size 8 1/5 men’s shoe! He is huge!
Fear not, because the summer is here. Starting last Thursday, he hangs out with his old man. The dude that gave him all of his swag, some of his brains, and most of his good looks! We are both excited, however there is work to be done this summer. I have to teach my son about values. The values that I want him to have: integrity, honesty, respect and intestinal fortitude. We had the speech already - “Deuce, just because it's summertime does not mean you are on vacation. You are just out of school.” There is plenty of work to do, and I plan on teaching as well as loving and raising my son to be a better man than I am.
Last summer, there were so many things going on for me. I returned from Iraq, got re-married, and my son was in the midst of it all. This year, I have a little bit more time on my hands, and after a busy summer last year I want to get back to what is most important. My son! He needs me and we are always on borrowed time. I have to mold him into the image of the man I think he should be, and I only have summers and holidays to do it. For his mother’s part, she does believe his development is worthy of his father’s attention. To that end, she believes it will be best for him to live with his father starting in the 6th grade. I welcome the challenge and I know that not all former wives would do the same thing. It took me a while to convince her on this idea, but I believe she understands that my role as a parent did not change when we split up. Maturity is the key and you must have it as a parent.
Dads...cherish this day - and every other one that you have as a father. What will you kids say about you when you are gone? What will they credit you with? What will they tell their children about you?
“Glory of children is their fathers” – Know it, See it and Believe it.
Happy Father’s Day!
- DMurray
Monday, June 14, 2010
Happy Monday!
This weekend is Father's Day weekend, so like last year, I'm reaching out to all the dads I know to contribute a blog post each day leading up to their special day. While both mothers AND fathers are special, I feel that men don't always get the same "shine" that the women do - so I'm giving the fathers a chance to share what being a daddy means to them in their own words.
First up - The Cable Guy! Show him some love!
Being a Baby Daddy...by The Cable Guy.
Some days I look at my son and wonder how I got here. One day, I was hanging with my boys, playing Xbox, hollerin' at the honeys...and the next, I was a baby daddy. Just like that. It happened overnight it seems, and at the time I was terrified. “How am I gonna do this?” I thought. What kind of father was I going to be?
Answer: I kick ass!
But I didn’t at first.
I got a text message saying she was a week late. Yes, a TEXT MESSAGE. At first I thought it was a mean joke - perhaps an April Fool’s joke...in August. I called her telling her to stop playing, only to realize she wasn’t. Not cool.
A text message...really?
We had been “dating” for only a few months, and I didn’t even know what her favorite color was. So finding out that I was going to be the father of a child whose mother I barely knew was mind boggling to me. No, our contraception didn’t fail...because there was none. We had been careful up until the shower...cuz bringing condoms into the shower is...well...who does that? I should have. I didn’t.
One missed period later and I was planning a shot gun wedding at the “suggestion” of her very religious father. Again, not the smartest decision I’ve made, but I wanted to do the right thing and “make an honest woman” out of his daughter. Guess he never pictured her ass up in the shower, but I wasn’t gonna tell him how his future grandson was conceived.
The moment I found out I was going to have a son, my world changed. Now I’d be responsible for raising a boy to be a man. At 25 years old, I wasn’t sure I was a man myself, and now I would be held accountable for making sure my son became one. The moment he took his first breath and was placed in my arms, I grew up. I wish I could say I was grown before that moment, but I wasn’t. The world was scary now, and I was his daddy. I wanted to protect him and guide him. I wanted to be a better man.
Being a better man meant being honest with myself. I wasn’t happy as a husband, but I was ecstatic as a father. I didn’t care about not being “cool” anymore. It didn’t matter to me that chicks were checking me out even though I smelled like baby puke or had spitup on my shirt or was carrying a “very manly” baby bag. I was bummed when I found out he had rolled over for the first time and I missed it because I was at work. I never wanted to miss any of my baby’s special moments or milestones, and each little smile or laugh or clap had me beating my chest with pride.
But I had to swallow that pride and admit that our marriage, that never should have happened, wasn’t working. I felt like a failure, and I didn’t want to be part of the stats of black families that have fallen apart. But I didn’t feel like I could be the best father I could be while being miserable. Yes, maybe I should have stuck it out, tried harder to make it work, or just sucked it up to my own stupid mistake and deal with it like a man. But I didn’t want my son to grow up to be the type of man who settles - the type who makes mistake after mistake without learning his lessons. I wanted my son to be happy, and to see his parents happy - and the only way I could teach him that was to separate from his mother.
It wasn’t just my decision – she was unhappy too. We made the decision to split together and explained to our parents that we’d make a better team as parents who lived apart, than as parents who coexisted miserably together. They didn’t support it at first, but now they get it.
Now, my son is thriving in a family where the parents have a mutual respect for one another, who both love him unconditionally, and who only have his best interest at heart. I can tell he’s happier, because WE are happier. And even though we have very different parenting styles sometimes, it seems to work because we communicate as friends, not as bickering exes who hate each other. My son only knows joy, not fighting or misery.
It took me making a hard decision to become a kickass father. I’m taking responsibility for him as well as my own actions and happiness. And as I continue to learn how to do that with every day that goes by, it’s turning me into the man that I hope he one day becomes.
-Rob
