On Fatherhood

There is a legacy in my family tree of broken children making families of broken children. Of moms and dads raising up poorly equipped children, then wondering why their children live a life of broken relationships and mediocrity. This is my story about my part in living that vicious cycle, perpetuating it, and now breaking it.

Oh how I remember as a young boy, I longed for a real daddy. I have two brothers and two sisters, all of who have the same father, and a different father than mine. Mom and her first husband, my brother's and sisters father, split for good when my oldest sister was only 6 years old. I had my foster father Pa, and he was great. He is still the greatest man I have ever hugged. He has taught me more by his humble example than most people teach in a lifetime of words. And I remember how I just loved waking up at Pa and Mamma Ethel's when I'd visit.
See, Pa and Mamma Ethel were my foster parents when I was just a baby, but my mom made sure I always had free access to them even after I was back home with her. That is one of the greatest gifts she gave me. An example of a man and a father that otherwise would have not existed for me.
But no matter how great my time there was, it was there. As in not at home. I never got to wake up with Pa on a school day. Except on the weekends I visited on a Friday, I didn't get to greet him as he came home from work. Oh man I felt like a king when he hugged me and smiled as he walked in the back door. Good times for sure. But it was a rare treat, not a regular part of my life. And as a young boy, I needed that. I needed my Pa. Every day. And we all need daddy. Daily.
I remember one day getting out of my mom's old Chevy Suburban as were going to Big Boy's for lunch, I looked at mom and like it was a normal kids curiosity, asked "mom when are you gonna get me a dad?" I don't remember her answer, but the only one that would have mattered was "right after lunch", and that wasn't the answer I got.
See, I had met my birth certificate father when I was about 7 or 8. At church. Mom pointed to him and told me that was Bob. That was my dad. I remember walking up to him, looking at him and saying hi. I gave him a hug like I'd been storing them up all these years just for him. That was the day I experienced stoic. Dead fish. Statue stiff. I expected a greeting like a long lost son would get. You know, hugs and smiles and kisses and such. What I got was more like what you might see when a boy with swine flu hugged you. It was not the greeting I expected from my father. I was crushed. And angry. I remember thinking all thru that church service what a dick he was and wondering what I did wrong. I'd never imagined a father could be so cold to his child.
From then until 1986 I hated him and always wondered how he could do that.
As a result of his coldness, I promised my future children that they would have their father. My kids would not have the holes on their heart I had. They would not wonder what was so wrong with them that their own father could barely stand to be touched by them. That's not how a father responds to his children. No matter what the relationship with the mother. And damn it, my kids were not going to have to feel a chill like that from their father. I was NOT gonna be a father like that!
As a result of Pa's love and the warmth he always showed me, I decided that my children WOULD have that. That's the father every child should have. Needs. Wants. And damn it, mine were gonna have him. I was gonna be a dad to my kids like my Pa was to me. My kids were gonna have a family.
Well, I got my answer to how my dad could be such a cold hearted dick to me. He wasn't my father.
At this point I gotta explain something that some of you might need to hear. Families have secrets. Right or wrong, productive or destructive, they exist. The more dysfunctional the family is, the more secrets there are, and the more destructive they are. In explaining this secret to follow, it isn't about assigning blame. It's just about being transparent, with the goal of understanding what happened, so maybe others get to learn from my family, so theirs don't have to live the same mistakes. That is the essence of wisdom, learning from others experiences so you don't have to live it yourself.
One secret in my family was that my father was not listed on my birth certificate. It is very possible that the man listed on my birth certificate, not my biological father, knew this detail. With that piece of information, it makes a whole lot more sense why he had zero desire to embrace me. He knew I wasn't his son. In '86 mom told me who my real father was. As it turns out, there is a strong possibility that he never even knew I existed. So my real father didn't know I existed, and the guy on my birth certificate didn't want me, with very good reason. So yeah, me and the whole fatherhood thing got pretty twisted pretty early in life.
As I merged into adulthood from childhood, I knew what I wanted. A family. A stable loving happy marriage and family. Children who grew up knowing that mom and dad loved them and each other enough to give them the mom, dad, family, and life they needed to live their lives well. Whatever that was for them, I just wanted my kids to be better that I was. Have better than I had. Isn't that what we all want for our family?
Here I have to reitterate something. The next section, in fact none of this, is about assigning blame. It's about beginning to understand why the past has been the way it has, and why the future can be different. Better. It's about learning from the past so it can be left there. There are lessons to learn from history, whether it's the history of a nation or the history of a family. Those lessons have to be learned. Until they are, they will scream distractions and misdirection onto the future. Once those lessons are learned, the past can echo positively into the future. I'm enjoying hearing the past echo more and scream less.
As a young man, in the United States Navy, I started on the journey of my adulthood. I knew what I wanted. I had seen it. And now was my time to do it. I got married, my beautiful wife got pregnant, after we talked and decided that we wanted to get pregnant. Then we got separated. Then my first son was born. Then we got divorced. Then I started dating a married woman with a 3 year old daughter. Then we moved in together. Then she got divorced. Then she gave birth to her second daughter (her and her husband's second child).  Then she got pregnant. Then she had my second son. Then we broke up when my second son was 3. All that was before I was even 24.
Oh. Wait. That doesn't sound like a very good start to the goals dreams and promises I had for my family does it? Hmm. If I had to play fortune teller after hearing about that last paragraph, I could solidly predict that not a single one of the goals dreams and promises I had for my family would come true. That sounds like a recipe for failure if ever there was one doesn't it?
Well, I'm here to tell you I sucked at starting a family. At being a dad. At being a husband. At being a man of honor. At building a stable durable marriage.
Of course I did. I mean, yeah, I had seen a functional family. A real dad. A good husband. A man of honor. A stable and durable marriage. But what I lacked was the preparation to be and do what I saw. The equipping. I have seen a house before too, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna be able to build one!
See, as hard as mom tried, as well intentioned as she was, and as much as she wanted to do right by her children, the truth is - she couldn't. Not in many ways. But she didn't know what ways she was coming up short, what ways could be most effectively used to improve our chance of success as adults.
Now I'm not about to try to troubleshoot the hows and why's and whatfores of my upbringing to any great detail. There is nothing to gain in that once it has been done enough to learn the lessons to be had. It's easy to let a conversation like this to slip from reflection and learning onto judging and condemning. I have already proven that I am in no position to judge for the purpose of blame and criticism. It could be argued that I have been no better a father to my children than my mother has been to hers. Which is really pathetic because a key requirement to be a father is in fact being male!
Ideally, we spend the first 18 years of our lives being nurtured and prepared and tested for adulthood. That isn't something that can be done without a plan and a purpose concioisly in mind. It is not wise to expect that our children are trained and equiped to handle a situation as an adult unless we know we equipped them with the needed tools when we had them under our care and direction.
Now, having been protected when needed, and prepared as needed, we are able to step out into the world and live a life worth living. Worth it to each individual.
It has been my experience and observation that this equipping has to happen. It isn't optional. As long as it goes undone, the persons life is simply a string of tragedies connected by tears and laughter. Me and mom have talked a lot about this. Based on our conversations, her childhood prep time for adulthood wasn't any better than she was able to do for her own children. So this next part is said for her as an adult as much as for me as an adult, which will show the cycle we both want to see learned from then shattered into oblivion!
If that preparation, nurturing and equipping doesn't get done at home, in the protective loving care and guidance of mom and dad, we get to do it for ourselves once we are let lose at 18. It's kinda the same as giving a person a truckload of rocks and a few pine trees and expecting them to know how to build a house. If it ever happens, it's not gonna be pretty, and its gonna take them forever!
But, no matter what, the house is going to get built. The life is going be lived. If they don't get equipped in childhood, they will have no choice but learn as an adult. It's much more difficult to learn as an adult what needed to be taught as a child. It's kind of like learning to land an airplane without knowing how to fly one. It can be done but it is stressful. It can be very bumpy. And the chances of it ending in a terrible tragedy is very high!
So, what does all this mean for now, and the future, and why have I bothered to even say all this?
Well, as I said earlier, I have failed as a father. I didn't play the positive encouraging loving role in my children's lives. I have spent a long time learning things not learned as a child. To some of you they would be simple things. Seemingly trivial. Like a carpenter learning what a hammer and nail are. But like those seemingly minor things, if left out, things can come crashing down around you. If I knew as an 18 year old what I know now, my life would have been very different. It's a pretty safe bet we can all say that. Looking back, and knowing where my life is now, and knowing what my life is like, I'm content. Romans 8:28 says "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose." It doesn't say anything like "everything that happens is God's plan." And it doesn't say that God makes everything all good. And it doesn't say that everything happens for a reason. It says that all things work TOGETHER for GOOD to those who LOVE GOD. I take that to mean that God is the lemonade master! No matter what we do, or how we screw it up, God can take any lemon (situation, accident, mistake, victory or failure) and make lemonade (make it work for His will and glory), and if we love him, he does. Including the mess I have made of my life thus far.
So, as I sit here, knowing all to well the mistakes of the past, I have regrets and I have opportunities.
I want my boys to know that I know I failed them.

Boys, I know you did not get from me what only your father can give you, and I am sorry. I can't undo it, I can't redo it, and I cant do it now. The things I needed to do for you, the things I was responsible for making sure you were equipped for, were time sensitive. They had a schedule that I did not keep, and I can't roll back the clock now and do my job. I failed you both. And I know it. I know you did learn some of those things, in spite of my foolish failures. Far far to many you didn't learn. Some you learned but in a distorted or incomplete way. I don't know the what's or where's or whys of all that. And for that I'm sorry too.
You are both in a very simular place to where I was at your age. And you get to decide where things go from here. There are still lots of things you need to learn. Some things you may know about, many you don't.
I failed to train you up in the way you should go, and now you have to do it yourself. Its not fair. It's not right that you should have to start your journey into manhood having to learn things you should have been taught in childhood. But it is your reality.
All I can do at this stage of your life, in addition to offering my sincere apology, is offer to share my experiences with you so you can consider how my life and it's lessons might serve to help you live yours better. My hope for you is that before you start a family, you will have learned enough to not continue the tragic legacy that has run rampant on both my family and your mother's family for at least 2 generations. My hope is for you to really be better. Better that the sum of your childhood. Better than mine and your mother's lives have been so far. And at least as good as you dream it to be.
No matter your relationship with God, you have to know that He works daily to influence and direct your life for greatness and for honor and glory and joy. He is the only reason I have not made some of the most tragic mistakes I was presented with over the years. Find people to learn from and grow from. If I can be a part of that, I would be honored.
I love you. And I will be whatever part of your life and learning now that you need me to be.

Happy Fathers Day
Dad