Over the weekend traveling home I saw this (Black) man and his two sons. It made me happy, so much so that I tweeted about it:
I love seeing fathers with their kids...makes me happy...
The responses I got back from the tweet made me think about a few things that bother me and some potential solutions.
All the responses/retweets I got were from women (thank you ladies). It bothered me that no brothers responded. Women can't be the only people who share this happiness with me. Of all the brothers that follow me no one feels the same way? Can't be true, at least I don't think so. When thinking about the reason behind this two things immediately came to mind: the macho attitude we carry and the resentment we have against our fathers.
We men have been socialized/conditioned to never show our emotions (
thank you society). Never show any weakness. Admitting something equates to being wrong about something or needing help. We men rarely admit anything for those reasons, we can't say we were wrong about something or God forbid
that we needed something. So maybe no males responded because they don't want to seem weak for admitting fatherhood makes them happy.
Or maybe its that resentment thing. Some, maybe even most, of us have so much resentment for
our fathers, those males (
not men) who failed to be our father. The fact that they weren't there hurts us so much we can't admit that we wish they were. Instead we say: "Fuck him." We resent him so much that the sight of a man with his kids, a man being a
Real Father pisses us off because we didn't get to experience it ourselves. Once again: "Fuck him."
Its certainly a combination of both of those things, both of which are harmful and can hinder our potential as fathers. Nothing good comes from hiding our emotions. When we keep all those negative emotions inside we're suicide bombers. Those emotions act like a time bomb, ticking away waiting to explode. When those explosions happen the people around us get hurt and
so do we. The resentment acts as the fuel behind those bombs, just adding to those negative emotions. The longer we resent, the stronger those emotions become and bigger and harmful the explosions.
Resentment is a natural reaction but as much as possible we must not let it fuel time bombs. Not an easy task. We have to start by letting those emotions out. Talk about with someone, preferably a brother who may be going through it as well. We can talk to our boys about all types of foolishness: the girl we trying get with, our Superbowl picks, music, our favorite movies, whatever. A conversation about our absent fathers shouldn't be so hard. If you feel you can't talk about it with ya boys re-evaluate your friends. Getting those emotions out will make you feel a lot better and prevent them from adding up. It will also take the resentment from being the fuel for negative emotions to being motivation to become the best father possible. Then we can slowly begin to clear out all the negative emotions, and maybe one day forgive than guy (maybe lol).
Turning that resentment into a positive fuel is so important. Once we do it we can then start thinking and talking about what we wished we had, the kinds of thing we wanted to do or hear, what we wished our fathers to be. Those thoughts/conversations evolve into what kind of fathers we want to be. Its not just something that we can should think/talk about, we can actually put it in action now even if we aren't fathers yet. Practice all the fatherly skills you think/talk about with your friends, nieces/nephews, cousins, mentees, any young person who crosses your path. Encourage the young fathers you encounter. All it takes is a "Keep doing a good job man" to keep that brotha going. We can do it brothers, matter of fact we
MUST, its our
responsibility.
Related tracks:
Stay -Fabolous ft Marsha Ambrosius,
Daddy -Juelz Santana,
Be a Father to Your Child -Ed O.G. and Da Bulldogs,
Where Have You Been? -Jay-Z and Beanie Siegel,
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