Fatherhood Freestyle: Are You My Daddy?

Let me start by saying God has a funny way of placing your anointing in front of you to remind you of the work still before you. I was in the beauty salon tonight waiting for my daughter to get her hair done. Second, let me say that by no means it was this the first time I’d sat and waited on a woman to finish something I had no interest in; getting hair done, shopping, talking on the phone. A good man will do it, but besides that, it’s my deposit for hoping for her to wait while I do something she’s not interested in; walking aimlessly through Best Buy or Home Depot; watching the game or talking about sports or video games; or on occasion my work; etc. etc. etc.

I’m always intrigued by the conversation that takes place when a bunch of women are talking. And as luck or fortune would have it, I was the only man in the salon. At times they were conscious of my presence, and at times they could care less that I was there. I am also a people watcher. Not in the weird perverted sense, just someone who is fascinated by human interaction and finds sport in imagining the life stories of the people I see. So, being in a salon with women and children, absent men to add a masculine presence, it was particularly interesting to see the various methods of discipline. Everything from yelling and screaming to the drag-off to the bathroom for the proverbial tighten-up!

As a Dad, I couldn’t help to realize and reflect for a moment that my 10-year-old daughter was experiencing something that will be a life-long ritual–going to the salon to get her hair done (did).  Along with several other observations, I could also sense that fathers in the lives of those children and good men in the lives of those women were a distant reality. It became overwhelmingly real for me when the little girl of a Mom, who spent the vast majority of her time yelling at this child, sat next to me and asked, “Are you my Daddy?” Stunned and overtaken, it took everything I had in me not to cry.  I could see the missing image of her father in her eyes. At 3-4 years old, she was already trying to fill it. Here I was, Mr. Responsible Fatherhood, and I had NO answer for her…and tragically enough neither did her mom.

As I stated before, what a way for God to remind me how critical my work has become. Statistically I know, anecdotally I know, clinically I know, but this child forced me to know on a whole different Godly level. In essence she was saying to me, “I don’t know who my daddy is, so what are you going to do about it?” And as she went back to play with the other kids, she left me perplexed and dazed. I had to stop the work I was doing, and as I watched her mother rise from the dryer, visuals told me a story that gave me little hope that this little girl would ever know who her daddy is.

To be honest, I am at a loss for words. Nothing gives me solace tonight that she will ever fill the hole in her soul created by a father who has left this beautiful Black child wondering and searching for a man who will probably never exist for her. Yet she will spend the rest of her life looking, hoping and possibly praying that the next man she asks, will respond by saying, “YES!”

Fatherhood Freestyle: Sober, Responsible Men and Fathers Please Apply

This post originally appeared on The Black Bar.

Historically, the role of Black men and fathers has been minimized by mainstream media and marginalized by society. Media assaults on the images of Black fathers have been well documented over the last 25 years. While several television examples of responsible manhood and Black fatherhood can be cited, including Sanford and Son, Good Times,The Jeffersons, The Cosby Show, Roc, The Bernie Mac Show andEverybody Loves Chris, the vast majority of images depicting Black fathers are devoid of any social or political responsibility as well as allegiance to our families.

Television shows like The Game, produced by actor Kelsey Grammer who starred in Frasier, continue a long legacy of portraying Black men as irresponsible and incapable of maintaining healthy relationships. The fallacy of shows like The Game is they fail to provide balanced perspectives of Black family life and culture. While The Game is merely entertainment to most, it continues to perpetuate destructive images about Black life and culture. Several parallels can be made to Zip Coon, a caricature that emanated from the Antebellum South. Zip Coon, an exaggerated figure, was created to depict Black men as lazy, easily frightened, chronically idle, inarticulate and unable to reason or comprehend.

 

The Game, which was thankfully canned by the CW Network, was subsequently picked up by BET as a result of millions of fans displaying outrage over its cancellation. Sadly, The Game debuted on Jan. 11, 2011, with more than seven million viewers glued to the tube. It saddens me that so many people – undoubtedly most of them African-American – got so outraged over the cancellation of a stereotypical television show when, by contrast, I bet if you go to any PTA meeting at virtually any school in this country you’d be hard pressed to find many African-American parents in attendance.

While the media plays a large role in shaping public discourse, our daily actions as men and fathers must be questioned. Indeed, we cannot be absolved of our culpability in some of the problems we face. According to a report disseminated by the National Fatherhood Initiative, the federal government spends about $100 billion annually on programs, policies and services related to absent fathers. The report, “$100 Billion Dollar Man,” is a glaring indictment of father absence and the toll it has on the larger family.

A growing segment of the population has become accustomed to not recognizing Black men and fathers as husbands, caregivers, and sober, responsible and spiritually guided men who are courageous pillars of their communities.

At some point, reclaiming the essence of responsible fatherhood in our community must become an agenda item. In fact, I argue some point is now! If the current trends continue, the alarming rates of violence and high-school dropouts among Black men will continue to plague low-income communities. It doesn’t take rocket science or an advanced degree from Harvard, Yale or Princeton to see the effects of absent fathers on the emotional, physical and spiritual essence of Black boys…

Read the rest HERE

MamaSpeak: Can You Be a Co-Parent if You’re not Co-Parenting?

I can’t count the number of times a frustrated parent has lamented to me, “You can’t be a co-parent, if the other parent won’t.”  Yeah.  I feel you.  And, really, I get it.  It’s a reasonable perspective.

But, it’s only one perspective.

There’s another that asserts that who you are and what you do doesn’t have to be contingent upon what anyone else is doing or being.

Yeah, maybe I can’t actively co-parent (the verb) without someone with whom to do it.  But, does that mean I can’t be a co-parent (the noun)…just without a partner?  Call me crazy, but I think it’s possible.  (Whatchu talkin’ ‘bout, Willis?)

It’s all about who you say you are; What you’re committed to; who you’re willing to be for the sake of your children…and your integrity.

See, for me, a co-parenting is kind of like a religion…and I strive to be a faithful follower…a devoted co-parent.  It frames how I choose to be in this world, in my relationship with my child’s other parent.  It isn’t relative, my sense of myself as a co-parent, because I stand committed to it regardless.

There are many times when I fall short.  I’m no co-parenting saint.  In fact, I admit to being a backslider.  But, there is a force larger than me, greater than any co-parenting sin I might commit—my love for my child—that gives me the strength to forgive my transgressions, to stand and step forward again believing that the journey will be worth it in the end.

When my son’s father fails to follow one or all of the Co-Parenting Commandments, it doesn’t change the fact that I have chosen to be a believer and to adhere to the tenets of my faith.  It does not mean that it is acceptable for me to treat him as anything less than a parent of my child; one who is human, and fallible, perhaps even a non-believer…and who despite it all, is loved steadfastly and unconditionally by our child.

See, for me, co-parenting is all about what I believe in, what I choose to be committed to, what I will stand for even in the face of apparent impossibility.  And defining myself as a co-parent is all about who I choose to be.  It’s a state of mind; a way of thinking about myself and my child’s father that guides me in being the best parent I can be for our son–independently of what his father may or may not be doing or being in any given moment.

It’s also a commitment.  A beacon of light that illuminates the steps to take along a sometimes treacherous path.  A lighthouse that stands unmoved by the ebbs and flows of my co-parenting relationship, pulling me back on course when I have lost my way.

Sure, I have crises of faith.  Welcome to the human condition.  Whether it’s faith a higher power, in ourselves, or in humanity, doubt will creep into the cracks, leading us to wonder if it’s really worth it, if our faith-guided actions really make a difference, if what we believe in really even exists.

And, the truth is, we don’t really know.  We have no guarantees.

The skeptics may be right.

Still, I remain a faithful, committed co-parent.  Amen.

Fatherhood Freestyle: Fathers, Be Good to Your Daughters

Driving back to my home office after taking my 14-year-old son to school today, I was listening to my favorite sports radio station. The hosts, all about my same age and all with at least one young daughter, happened to be talking about Darius Rucker [formerly of Hootie and the Blowfish], who is now a country singer. The original question put forth had to do with whether they “bought” Rucker as a country singer. Yet the conversation quickly spun into a debate about whether his song, “It Won’t be Like This for Long,” was the best father-daughter song ever.

This got me thinking about my own favorite father-daughter song, “Fathers Be Good to Your Daughters,” by John Mayer. When I heard this song floating through the speakers in a Nordstrom store several years back, it felt like a lovely and particularly decent musical snippet of life in a time when the 24-hour media cycle was beginning to demand ever more lurid and inane content to spew onto any who would watch or listen. From the lyrics, to the guitar, to the breathy quality of Mayer’s voice, it seemed like one of those classic songs that would transcend most contemporary clamorings and forever define the father-daughter song category.

So cut to last spring. My family and I had traveled to Maryland for my sister’s wedding. Late one night, my wife and I walked into a Safeway grocery store to pick up a few things we could eat right then and also make for breakfast in the morning. After wandering for what seemed like endless, unnecessary minutes through a store with a layout foreign to us, “Fathers Be Good to Your Daughters“ started playing through the store’s sound system. I immediately begin humming enthusiastically, enthralled by the looks on the faces of both black and white shoppers who looked surprised to hear this Black man uttering this John Mayer tune!

Yet, as my attention shifted from those around me to the lyrics of the chorus—Fathers be good to your daughters / Daughters will love like you do / Girls become lovers who turn into mothers / So mothers be good to your daughters, too—I felt that proverbial lump in my throat, and I found myself fervently fighting back tears.

As I continued to listen, all I could think about was my baby girl, Laylah—she who is born at night; my dark beauty. I realized that though I had thought about the lyrics of that song many times since she had been born roughly 15 months prior, I had not actually heard the song played since before she was born. So this ethereal composition of words and melody that I believed poetically summed up my moral imperative as a father to Laylah was now wafting into my ears for the first time since having had memories of her birth, and feedings, and first steps, and first words; and since having had visions of what her life might ultimately become.

So now, while walking through the store and projecting this soundtrack onto the silver screen of Laylah’s life, my eyes welled up to the point where they were certain to spill their contents. Fortunately, I was able to discreetly dab my eyes before any tears rolled down my face and before my wife or any other shoppers could notice. Yet I could not shake how profoundly this song both moved me and so succinctly conveyed how imperative it is for men to be a loving presence in the lives of their daughters.

By the time we exited the store, I could no longer contain my tears. While laughing through the water streaming down my face, and simultaneously shaking my head at feeling ridiculous about being a grown assed man crying at night, in a grocery store, and over a song, I quickly and humorously explained to my wife what it was I thought I was experiencing. She seemed to vaguely understand and thought it was sweet, but somehow I think she still thought I was bugging.

Cut back to today. After getting settled in my office, I went to YouTube to check out the Darius Rucker song the radio hosts had been debating. Nice song. It definitely captures the idea of cherishing the moments a father has with his daughter because each magical stage of her life won’t last long. But there is just something in Mayer’s song about being good that I believe paints a gorgeous portrait of not just what to take from our experiences as fathers, but of what to give to those experiences as well—especially to our daughters. And for that reason, I cried again. I cried because I know that one day, as Mayer so aptly coined, daughters will love like we do.

In listening to this song yet again, I learned today that I probably won’t ever be able to listen to it without exhibiting some degree of unbridled emotion. I am certain there are multivalent reasons for this, my own “father issues” notwithstanding. But whatever the reasons John Mayer’s words and guitar licks move me to tears, I know that at the very least, the notion of having been given this gift of life so that I might give my daughter a pattern of love that will serve her for her own life is a notion that conjures both a profound sense of duty and a deep sense of joy. This is why both the effort and the tears fill my heart and fuel my smile.

These days, it has become fashionable to call a brother a punk simply for having the capacity to experience a range of emotions beyond anger or hubris. I shed some serious tears over a sentimental song sung by a pop culture white boy. This is true. That was me—the “strong” Black man experiencing a moment of genuine sentimentality. And yes, I would have been more than a little embarrassed at having been seen crying in Safeway for no apparent reason [let's face it, testosterone still runs through my blood, and a certain type of acculturation still guides how I comport myself as a man]. That being said, I can honestly say I don’t possess much concern for what anyone calls me, as long as Laylah can call me a loving daddy who’s always been good to his little, dark beauty.

Fathers, be good to your daughters.

MamaSpeak: Co-Parenting is the New Black History Celebration

As the daughter of a Black Studies pioneer and a history major, myself, the study of Black history has always been an integral part of my life.  It was all around me, on the bookshelves of my parents’ home, in the framed art on their walls, in the lessons my father taught to college students.  It just was.  No special month required.  So, despite the identity crises resulting from being raised in a lily white college town, I was well-versed in the proud heritage from which I sprang…kings and queens of African nations, revolutionaries and activists, heroes and sheroes whose names were rarely found in any of my school books.

In the past few years, though, “Black History” has taken on new meaning for me.  Thanks to my father’s interest and commitment to doing genealogical research on his family, I have been blessed with a more intimate connection to the history embedded in my biological and cultural DNA.  And, learning that history has influenced my story about myself in ways that no knowledge of an ancient Egyptian pharaoh ever could.

For much of my life my story has been about fear—fear of failing, fear of succeeding, fear of looking like an idiot, fear of getting hurt…you name it.  You’ve felt it.  At so many points in my life, I have been confronted by this paralyzing thought that I can’t do it (whatever it is). Whatever the ingredient was that makes some people do it anyway…I believed I didn’t have it.  It just wasn’t in my genetic code.  And, it cost me.  I mortgaged some valuable opportunities and hoarded some important contributions that might have made a difference somewhere to someone.  But, that was my story, at least the first draft, and I was sticking to it.

But, inspired by his research, my father started to share new stories…well, old ones, really, but, new to me.  And, those stories inspired a new draft of my own.  The heroes of these tales include an Uncle who won the pardon of his brother after decades of hard labor on a Mississippi chain gang for exacting his own sense of justice with a shotgun at a time when and a place where there was no justice for a little Black girl, his daughter, who had been raped.  And, also among them are landowning freedmen from Virginia, brothers, unjustly enslaved and sent to Mississippi after the Dred Scott decision, only to reemerge there as freedmen and landowners again decades later; a feat as impressive as turning water into wine during that era.  My father’s interest has connected us to the Bubi people of Bioko island, known for overcoming their own incessant internal warfare when necessary to collectively kick the assess of slavers who attempted to set foot upon the shores of their island.

The moral of these stories for me is that I come from some fierce stock.  My people, my kin, were determined, justice-loving, do-or-die, nuttin’ nice kind of folks both on the continent and on the plantation, and that is the blood that flows in me.  The closeness of some of this history, the specificity of it, has reshaped who I know myself to be in many ways.  It has given me certainty that the immediate past is not all that defines me and that I have a direct and traceable connection to some bad ass Black folks.  And, though it is difficult to explain, it is empowering for me to be able to say with certainty that I, too, am a bad ass Black woman…and I get that trait from my great-great-grandfather on my father’s side.  So, as I enter into the second half of my life, I do it armed with the second draft of my story…one that serves me more fully than the first.

And, I wish that for every Black child.  If I could give each of our children one Black History Month gift, it would be the opportunity to say with certainty, “Yeah…I am [insert word of power here], and I get that from my mother/father’s side.”

Of course, because our lineage as African people in this country is difficult to trace, there are barriers.  But, perhaps the other part of that tragedy is that because our families have been disconnected by the conflict that often accompanies divorce, separation and never being married…with kids…most of our children never get a true appreciation of the blood that flows through them.

I understand that you might not be enamored with your child’s Mama or Daddy today or ever, but what we have to understand as parents is that our children’s stories don’t start with us.  Many, if not all of us, have hearts that pump blood infused with the inspiration, determination and genius of a line of survivors, strivers and thrivers.  Our shortsightedness, the Baby Mama/Baby Daddy drama that we allow to be insurmountable, denies them their rightful access to a connection that could be the healing potion for the parts of their stories that blind them to their possibilities.

Giving our greatest effort to co-parenting and learning and sharing the truth that the weave of their DNA is strong, the reach is deep and the rich blood of both sides of their family flows unhindered within them could be the salve that soothes the pain of the story they carry…and exposes the illusion that because their parents have separated, their family is broken.

MamaSpeak: Co-Parenting and Grief–On Losing Love and Finding Yourself

I recently heard a phenomenal sermon relating to grieving. The sermon focused on getting through and past the 3 stages of grieving. They are:

• Numbness
• Disorganization
• Reorganization

The first step, numbness is a state of severe shock and denial of the death. Life and everything in it seems unreal, like you are living a dream. A really bad dream. You may distance yourself from people and life and be stuck in your emotions and thoughts.

Disorganization is next and is surrounded by emotional chaos. You may feel irate, annoyed, relieved, panicked, or devastated. If the death was sudden and tragic, you may feel like you need to seek revenge. Depression kicks in as you realize your loved one is gone, as well as fear, and physical agony.

The last stage is that of reorganization. In this stage you reorganize your life and learn to live with the loss of your loved one. You learn to readjust and become more emotionally stable.

After you’ve gone through these stages, a new you emerges. So they say.

After hearing this powerful sermon I realized that I am grieving the end of my relationship with my daughter’s father and our new co-parenting situation.

I’m currently in the disorganization stage and am an emotional wreck. Even though we ended our relationship two years ago, I am still in a state of severe disorganization. I am an uncontrollable emotional being living in a state of constant chaos and confusion. I am devastated we are not together; I’m angry, fearful, anxious, panicked, depressed, lonely, and unwilling to move past my own grief to reorganize my life. I don’t know how, I can’t imagine my life being reorganized, can’t imagine it someday being ok that we are now co-parents and not soul mates. I’m so stuck on him and what was, than I cannot accept and appreciate what is and what is to come. I know that in order to be emotionally free I need to find a way to push through this disorganization phase, regardless of how much it hurts. Regardless of how many tears I shed. Regardless of how long it takes. Of course I don’t want to be living in this stage for the rest of my life, but I’ve come to realize and respect its time in my life. I am grieving, and I need to allow myself space and time to grieve in my own way. Though I do realize that the sooner this phase ends, the sooner I can reorganize my life.

MamaSpeak: The Non-Custodial Other

One of the most challenging situations confronting single parents is that of visitation and interacting with the courts.  In The Myth of the Broken Home – Guidebook for Single Parents, one of the most delicate chapters for me to speak on is “The Non-Custodial Other” as it stirs up many emotions for me.

During this time, my daughter, Tamara, was about five years old, I was coming out of a domestic violence situation, and my daughter had become accustomed to seeing her father on a daily basis.  He was in her life from the time she was born, whereas my son knew little about his dad because we divorced when my son was about a year old.  Soon after my first divorce, his father, in the military at the time, was relocated to the east coast.   So basically I had very little control over whether or not he chose to see my son.

I vividly recall my daughter’s terrifying scream when departing from her dad at the storage place where we met to retrieve our items.  Upon entering, when she saw him, she was elated and played as if nothing happened.  But that’s expected of a five year old child, and it also displayed the love she had for her father, particularly since soon after the domestic violence occurred, she would sit in the back of the car, yelling in her little voice, “I hate my daddy.” I would tell her, “You do not hate your father, Ta’mara, you hate what he did”.  My babies hurt, and I saw them hurting, however, I refused to allow my children to become embittered by the situation that could affect them for the rest of their lives.  The forgiveness and the healing were not for him but for my babies.

Now don’t get me wrong.  I was not going to put her in harm’s way, but for two years he refused to see her.  He made promises and did not comply with the court order, and on many occasions I drove her to his house.  I despised him during this time as I watched him hurt my daughter over and over again, but inside I knew she needed him in her life.  As my son grew up, his father swore I was trying to keep him away, and I said, “I can’t wait until he gets of age so you can see that it’s not me.”  “If you were in his life like a father should be, there would be nothing I could do to keep him away from you.”  His accusations upset Jamal, because it was I who often encouraged Jamal to contact his father.   Although he is now a young adult, I continue to encourage him to send his father a card or to call.

As a society, we often talk about the importance of boys having a positive male role model to aid them towards developing into men, but that is equally, if not more important, for girls.  The dynamics that exist in a relationship between a male and female are innate, and it doesn’t matter if it’s mother-son or father-daughter; these relationships are pertinent for our children’s emotional development.

Today our girls are grappling with their identity, aimlessly searching for someone to show them affection and approve of them.  Again, if they don’t have a positive male role model during their stages of development, they will by means of their own understanding fill that void.   My son, who is 9 years older than his sister, was a big support and continues to be a very influential male in her life, especially when her father was not there.  As I sit and reflect back on these times, I begin to cry because I am so thankful, so grateful, for how far God has brought us and that he is allowing me to share with others how we all can make this work together.  Don’t get me wrong; it is tough as I still remain pretty protective over her, but today Tamara and her father have a wonderful relationship.  Just because he and I were at odds does not mean it will be the same with him and his daughter.

Visit www.nobrokenhome.com
to learn more about
The Myth of the Broken Home – Guidebook for Single Parents

MamaSpeak: When a No-Parent Co-Parent Finally Makes Contact–Part 2

SPOILER ALERT: This is the second in a 2-part series.  Click here to read Part 1…

I drove to work Wednesday morning, the day I decided to make the call, struggling to imagine what the conversation would be like. Having no contact with my child for more than a decade is so incomprehensible and far removed from who I am as a person, that I just couldn’t wrap my mind around it. What could he possibly say? What would I say? How would I say it? Does he deserve decency and respect, or am I well within my rights to cuss him out? How do I explain this to my son? Does my son even want this? What do I expect from him? What kind of relationship would I be comfortable with them having? What if my son treats him like a “Dad”? Would I consider that a “slap in my face”? Will his father be consistent? How would I react if my son started acknowledging him on Father’s Day?

This loop of questions ran over and over in my mind and would not end. I felt tormented. I really wished he’d stayed away. Fortunately, this wasn’t about me. And further, I was confident that the young man my village and I raised was fully capable of handling this reunification, no matter how shocking, difficult or brief.

After spending the majority of my work day tortured by the thoughts of calling this man, I finally decided to do it during my drive home. When he answered the phone I felt my body tense with anger.

“Hi, this is Leida, my cousin Ken gave me your number and said you wanted me to call you.”

“Yea, um, how are you doing?”

What? How am I doing? What does it matter to you now that your son is legally grown? You didn’t care how I was doing the whole time I had the responsibility of raising him. Don’t you WORRY about how I’m doing!

After my internal 20-second rant, I continued the discussion:

“Look…do you want to talk to Toris, your ADULT son? I’m assuming this is why you wanted me to call you.”

“Um yea, how is he?”

“He’s perfectly fine. He’s starting college in a few weeks.”

“Oh, where’s he going…Is he staying in the dorm?”

“Look, this is what I am willing to do…I will talk to him and let him know you want to talk to him. I am NOT giving you his cell phone number…HE will decide whether or not you talk…NOT YOU! Goodbye.”

Later that evening I was cleaning my bathroom when my son came home. As always, he joined me where I was so that we could have our normal evening chat. He gave the usual run down of his day and I followed with mine.

“So, yea, I talked to your dad today.”

“Huh?”

“Yea, he wants to talk to you, how do you feel about that?”

“I don’t know. It’s cool, I guess. He called you?”

I then explained that he’d reached out to my cousin several days ago and passed on his number, and that I’d called him.

“Oh. Well, OK.”

“Look, Toris, you do not have to call him. This is completely up to you. As far as I’m concerned, you owe him nothing and he owes you everything. Do you want to call him?”

“Yea, I’ll call.”

“OK. You don’t have to. And even if you decide to, you can change your mind. Do you have any questions for me before you call him?”

“What do I call him?”
“Whatever you want to call him. Whatever you’re comfortable with. You owe him nothing. “

I felt so relieved to have had the conversation with my son. He deserved the option. I knew he could handle whatever happened between him and his father.  More importantly, I was happy that he would finally have an opportunity to have his say.

The following day I called his father to let him know that I’d had the discussion with Toris and that he may be calling him. I also requested that he keep his word with him and not make promises he had no intentions of keeping.  As quickly as I’d made the request, I wished I could have retracted it or, better yet, that I’d never made it. Toris , now 18 not 8, could handle it. I didn’t need to.

I’m no longer part of the equation. My conscience and I are free! I could walk away with the pride of knowing that I’d never spoken a single ill word about his father to him. I could walk away knowing that I’d always kept the door open for his father and never denied him access to his son, for any reason. I could walk away trusting that, though difficult for him on multiple levels, my son was grateful for this day. I could walk away knowing that my son was armed with the most powerful compass he could possibly have for navigating the terrain he was about to embark upon: the Truth (and the full support of his Mom).

And I did…I walked away.

That chapter is finally closed.

MamaSpeak: When a No-Parent Co-Parent Finally Makes Contact–Part 1

This is the first in a 2-part series.  Enjoy Part 1 and then check out Part 2 here.

2008 was a great year for me. My son and I were celebrating exciting milestones: his 18^th birthday, high school graduation and entrance into college. By early August we’d already celebrated the birthday and graduation and were preparing for his move into his college dorm when I got the call. His father – who had been absent from his life entirely since the age of 5, who had never, EVER paid a single dime in child support, sent a birthday card, or even picked up the phone to call to say “hello” –  contacted my cousin requesting my telephone number.  Now understand that this is the same man who refused to help me when our 6-year-old son was sick and in need of financial support to pay for prescriptions. The same man who for the first 4 years of his son’s life lived less than 5 minutes away from him, and it would not take both hands to count the number of times he bothered to see him. The same man who, because I decided to end the relationship with him and not tolerate his constant cheating, decided to end the relationship with his son and not look back.

My cousin could tell I was shocked. It must have been the constant bumbling over phrases like “I can’t believe this,” “you have got to be kidding me,” and “are you serious?” that gave me away.  He tried to preempt my launch into anger: “Well, you have to forgive,” “Just hear him out,” “Think about Toris…” I accepted the number and ended the call still in total shock. Nonetheless, I’d made the commitment to consider making the call. That was Sunday afternoon.

By Tuesday night I was seething. I’d spent the last several days reliving the last 18 years in my mind. I’d recalled every painful discussion I’d had to have with my little boy about his father’s absence. I remembered all of the confusion his and his family’s absence created for my son and how I struggled to explain inexplicable.  So, yes, by Tuesday I was downright mad!

During my 48-hour trip down memory lane three incidents in particular stood out for me:

The first was when my son was in 4^th grade. I’d bonded with several of the parents through school-related activities, events, and our attempts to nurture our children’s friendships outside of the classroom. During one school event I was chatting with a parent who shared with me that my son had told classmates that his father was dead, and proceeded to give her condolences. I was extremely alarmed that my son had decided to deal with his father’s absence by declaring he was dead. Up until that point, I had not discussed his father’s absence with him, nor had I encouraged him to talk to me about it. That would eventually change.

The second was when my son was in 6^th grade. He was spending the night with a classmate whose parents had taken them all to a relative’s home for a gathering. The relative, who had met me before, for some odd reason, proceeded to ask my son who he looked like, insisting that he did not look like me. My son fell silent, somewhat confused by her question. She then asked him whether or not he looked like his father. My son, in his innocence, replied: “I don’t know.” After all, he had not seen him since he was 5 years old, and his memory of how he looked had faded. When Toris shared this experience with me, I was not only devastated, I felt ashamed. I was the mother of a child who didn’t even know what his father looked like. What type of woman was I?

The last incident was on Father’s Day following his 6^th grade year. With the previously described incident in mind, I asked my son if he felt he was missing out on anything by his father not being around. He said yes and that he really wanted someone to help him get better at basketball and that he didn’t like practicing in the driveway alone. I experienced an instant shift. I realized my son needed a space where he could safely express himself around this issue. I felt enlightened.

As I thought through these incidents and how I eventually decided to handle them, I realized that a beautiful tradition was born out of them. I began to use some of our “dinner dates” as an opportunity to create the space for my son to talk about his father and his absence if he wanted to.  He owned this space and began to bring his father to life, into his life, through our regular sharing.

Recalling the tradition, I realized that I’d intentionally put forth the effort to help my son create and hold a space in his life for his absent father. It was now time for me to give him the option of deciding whether or not he would allow his father to step into it. My heart still ached for the 11-year-old who deserved to know if he looked like his father.

I decided to make the call…

The story’s not over! Read Part 2…

In the meantime…
What would you do or have you done in this situation?

MamaSpeak: Is Co-Parenting Really Worth All the Effort?

I had never heard of co-parenting until I was smack in the middle of it. Many different reasons lead to my daughter’s father and I ending our relationship. For a while after our relationship ended, I still acted like we were together. Assuming he would be as involved as when we were together. Assuming I could just go over and hang out at his house. Assuming that the feelings he had for me were still there. Guess my head gets stuck up in the clouds sometimes.

It took a long time for me to accept our situation and even longer to view it as a co-parenting situation. I was bitter, and I was downright mad at the situation. I was angry that we weren’t still together and that when it came to our daughter, we had two varying opinions. I said left; he went right. We didn’t talk to each other. We barked. We scowled. We yelled. I was so sure that my way was the best way. I mean, I’m her Mother. I was the one who carried her for 9 months, breastfed her, read her bedtime stories, did her hair in the morning, knew she liked her apples cut in thin slices not thick. And what did he know? Nothing…if you asked me back then. I didn’t value his place in her life, and it all comes back to me being bitter and angry that we weren’t together.

I couldn’t harbor all those negative emotions inside of me forever. It wasn’t healthy for me or my daughter. It was draining all of my energy being so mean, so I had to let it go and embrace the idea of co-parenting. I had to accept him as her Father and her Dad and an equal being in our daughter’s life. Because she isn’t just my daughter, she is our daughter; and we both have a responsibility to keep her healthy, safe, and happy.

Co-parenting matters because my daughter’s happiness is my number one priority. She and her Dad have this unbreakable bond that I don’t understand at all. But I have learned that I don’t need to understand their bond. That’s something special that only they share. When I see them together, when I see my daughter’s face light up as she yells, “Daddy”…well, that’s why co parenting matters. My daughter is lucky and has two parents who think she is the most precious thing on this planet and want nothing more than to see her smile every day.

I want us to be able to have a pleasant conversation, I want us to be able to all go out to dinner together and laugh and have a good time. I want to be able to call him without it being a yelling match. And I want our daughter to know that Mommy and Daddy are ok with being around each other. We owe that to her.

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