Heart of a Father
“The other day lil man was like how come Santa don’t come to da hood? I was like yo mama been on da grind for years and I stay on mine so you can live good and participate in dumb ass holidays that wudn’t meant for us, bo so some fat, white dude in a costume can break into my house just to show me up. You got pedophile Saint Nick, and he dead. I’m Santa Claus. Period.”
-đź’™ of Marley Newgate
We Got This
Honestly, I believe any man who says he had never had any fears when it comes to becoming a father, is full of shiitake del toro. Or they’re in De Nile River. They might be purple unicorns made of orange sherbert. They might even be cold and uncaring and uninvolved enough to not merit any fears. But I don’t believe they’re being honest. If nothing else, the world is a dangerous place that we never know how well our kids are prepared for until they get out there without us and show us what they’ve got. For better, or for worse.
There are some things in life for which we can know if we are prepared, but not know whether we’re ready until we are in it. Marriage, physical combat, loss of loved ones, and parenthood are the four I know of for sure. Preparation, as I mean it here, is more of a practicality. Training. Resources. Things like that. Readiness is more of a character thing. That fight or flight concept. Who one is, beyond or deeper than necessarily what one does. Watching a professional fight, a funeral procession, old couples renew their twenty-five year long wedding vows, or a blended family work together is one thing. Being in the ring, losing a child, being married, and partnering with an ex and a current wife as a functional team is another. A man who is hungry and sleepy will show more of himself to you than a man who is fat and happy. At the base of a man, is there just a primate with a desire to survive, or is there a person with a capacity to love? The attributes of reality tend to turn into pressure for people with much advice to offer and little experience to base it on. I always hope I am ready for what is next with the kid. I always believe I am who he needs as a father for a primary example of manhood. And I always hope I am ready when tough times come.
That said, having a child at twenty years old with a woman I wasn’t with or married to without the intention to do so was never part of any plan I conceived in my head. While it is a normal narrative for many of our communities, mine included, I can’t recall ever waking up and thinking, “Man, I think I’ll make a baby today.” But I also can’t recall waking up, or going to sleep, checking off items or goals met on a list of things moving me toward a dream in life. Not until my mid-twenties. I had a kid the way I did because I was unfocused. I had energy and no passion. Strength and no discipline. Brilliance and no study. Creativity and no cause. The kid is no accident. Nor is he the result of an accident. His birth, wonderful as it may have been, was the result of a lack of vision. That is what scared the cuss word outta me. Sure I didn’t want to have to deal with another grown person and their opposing philosophies when it came to our child. That is cumbersome and draining at times. Sure I have doubts about if I’m consistently on point as a dad. That doubt alone can be problematic when situations arise. Sure I have fears about this difficult world littered with isms and schisms and monsters with smiles on their faces and oppressive systems, which I helped bring him into. But the scariest thing was the self confrontation about how I cocreated a person while having no vision for my own life. That’s true irresponsibility. The weight of my decisions took on a new toll for me.
Never have I been so inclined to believe I am even one of the best fathers in the world, but I was born for this. If it comes from me, be it a son, a book, a company, or a fashion line, I have what it takes to be who I need to be for it. Like my wife or my brothers, I see the kid as my partner in the effort to help him realize his potential, master hisself, and positively impact the world we live in. As long as I’ve done my best, I have done my part. It is then fair to expect him to do his. And unfair for me to raise him out of fear laced guilt. To compensate for my mistakes and lack of vision and self-control in the past, spoiling him rotten in the process. Parents do that and end up pseudo confused or in denial, feeling that they did everything they could for a child, and that same child became a selfish terror. He’s owed my love, not my sympathy. He’s not the first one in his situation, and he won’t be the last. He’ll be fine. I’ll be fine. Everybody will be fine. We’re in this together.
Someone asked me whether or not fatherhood is the end of independence. I’ll give my thoughts on that. But, first, let me share my opinion of independence. What is it? I’d like to know. It seems to not exist. There is nothing accomplished in this world by one person. Any feat or accomplishment always takes at least one other person in some way shape or form. None of us got here by our own will and volition. Being born takes to people who might not even be thinking of making another human, let alone what it’s health, gender, or capacities will be. The earth was ready for humans, not the other way around. And it’ll most likely still be here when we make it uninhabitable for ourselves. Living “on my own”, a big energy company takes my money and keeps my lights relevant and my water heatable, and laws I never made govern my daily behavior. The keyboards and beat machines are based on sounds once made by live strings, drums, horns, and other things. Musicians, athletes, physicists, scholars, and inventors go farther than anything seen before by standing on the proverbial shoulders of those who’ve laid and built upon the foundations of men and women who have loved what they love, and lived and died to make it great. Even guys who have never met their dads walk and talk like them. No such thing as doing it all by yourself. Being a father is no different.
If independence is thought of in a much smaller way, like going, doing, and saying what we we want when, where, and how we want to, then we might be looking at the end of it once we become fathers. At least depending on one’s style of being a father and if our choices in life up to said point allow us to live that out fully. In other words, it depends on what kind of dad a guy is willing and able to be. As tends to be my pattern, I’ll speak from my own experience. I’m a hands on guy. Certainly willing. Not able since the kid lives with his mother in another state for a couple more years. Like many on my situation, it means I listen to and watch what I wouldn’t if he were living with the wife and I. I still contribute to his care and well being financially, emotionally, and spiritually. When he is with me, I simply take on the responsibility to not expose to him to what he is not mature enough to process the right way. I don’t work as many weekends. I sleep a little less. For me, it’s an opportunity. I’m free to be a dad. I love that shiitake. I was born for it. However, for someone who is not born for this wonderful journey, the inconvenient process of becoming a dad can be an uncomfortable struggle. That makes most people feel bound.
As a father, everything becomes intentional in the sense that priorities shift. At least it should. Or we begin looking into why we do and say and think what we do. The thing about teaching or exemplifying and having a living mini-self for evaluation is we get to see what we normally cannot. We see what others could never quite express to us about us, and we get to see it from the other side of our nose. More reflective than students, friends, apprentices, or pupils, is the image of ourselves we find in our children. It is like a window into our will and ability to be altruistic, and our capacity for love. Exploring one’s self in a new way. In a way that is only triggered by new relationships and new commitments. That may feel like bondage, but it never truly can be. At least not in a bad way. Growth of this kind is never diminishing. It doesn’t deprive. And I say this as a man who once had money and almost no bills, and women with no commitment. Now being married, and having a child live in another state, for whose care I provide funds every month, and working an average of forty-eight hours per week to pay a multitude of bills and debt and to support my passion as a writer, while having a tee shirt design gig on the side. How we live one season determines how well we enter another. If we do the kidless season right, it makes a transition into fatherhood more natural. From the freedom of having no wife and kids, to the freedom to be a man on levels I couldn’t be without those I love.
I feel that I am pretty fortunate to have a son and not a daughter when I consider conversations around romance, especially concerning sex. I can speak with him from his own position. Not only because I am a man who once was mannish and pubescent, but I have only brothers and I grew up with mostly male cousins. Not that it makes me an expert on being male, but I have much more to refer to as a base when it comes to raising a man than a woman. The kid and I have discussed reproductive systems, organs, and body parts, where babies come from, things like that. But nothing compares to the sexual tension from when a young man’s body demands the chemistry of a young woman’s body. I am not looking especially forward to that talk. “THE” talk.
For me, it can never be something that suddenly comes up. Which is why I always aim for there to be no blockades in communication between the kid and I. Boundaries are a must. But he should feel safe and secure talking to the man he feels like he will become someday. The first or second time the kid spent a summer or a few months with me, we established a free flow of information exchange between us. Not from a desire to make sure he tells me everything about his life. Not to use his trust to manipulate his honesty to control him for what I believe to be his best interest. But so that he feels that, as long as he comes correct, he can talk with me about anything. It’s easy to want to try and control things and people that were never meant to be subject to our ideas. But, if pets don’t even give us absolute control at all times, what makes us think it sensible to expect that from a person? Not just a human. A person. The individual. Plus, if we parents don’t provide an environment where our kids are safe to explore, experiment, and evolve, they will do it somewhere else. And with someone who may not be as invested as we are.
The “talk” can’t just be about getting busy, either. Not for me. Before we get to the practical side of things like hygiene and such, we have to address the importance of a relationship being in place before sex takes place. People have different beliefs. I believe it best to get busy with someone who shares a deep commitment and true connection with you. Pretty much a spouse. Someone invested and time-tested in a way that God has blessed it. That’s my personal philosophy. I firmly believe that to be solid approach for most people worldwide. It’s definitely advice I would offer to my son. Emphatically because he has some important things in common with me emotionally. I’m a lover. He’s a lover. I’m a giver. He’s a giver. I have been abused up to the point of violent reaction. He easily could be the same. (self-love helps with that). It’s not just about protecting his body. It’s about protecting his personhood. Men are historically expected to be animalistic when it comes to sex, and women to be virtuous and simultaneously subject to whims of men. Women’s goodies are precious jewels, and men’s goodies are just conduits of procreation and objects of a whole bunch of “evil” connotations. I don’t believe that crap. I believe every part of every person is valuable, and should be treated and handled as such. I’ll teach him that.
Then, of course, we can get into the nitty-gritty. And, I hope that my wife and the kid’s mom will be involved. Not only when it comes to his first time, but later on. I can tell him things from my perspective. But I’ll never know a woman like a woman. And the same goes for the wife and the kid’s mom. He needs both. We have to be available. We have to be honest. And what I mean by “later on” is later on in his marriage. Women are typically socialized (at least where I live) to talk about everything. They can talk about what does and doesn’t make them wet. What freaky things do and don’t work for them. They can have these conversations without the air of competition or homophobia. Most men I know don’t have that same freedom. But we need it. We need to have trust and intimacy, without judgment and competition. We need to be available. We need to be honest. I will tell him all about what formed my ideas around sex. What helped and what hurt. I will be (conceptually) honest with him about his conception and the affects of his birth, the challenges and all. When we don’t say anything and just let them watch and gain stuff for themselves, our kids tend to get ideas without understanding. We’re so busy keeping up appearances. We’re so busy trying to keep them outta our business and maintain a distance for political/power structure reasons, we forget to give them what they need. We easily forget to honor and respect the fellow person that they are with the truth. We need to be available. We need to be honest.
Sound It Out
Language arts have always been a cornerstone of life for me. Seemed like destiny from the start. My mother taught me to read before I ever went to grade school. I grew up in one of the most literate cities in the world, Seattle. I didn’t even meet folk who couldn’t read until some time after I started working. I was pretty fortunate to have a lot of male teachers in grade school, when I was far less opinionated and focused than I am now, and my self concept was so easily influenced. For this cause, learning has never been a thing engineered by just women. A lot of folk growing up in environments where education is more of an option than a priority usually see women as nurturers and cultivators, because of most, if not all, of their teachers being women. Most importantly as a man, I am extremely blessed to have a father who has always had a habitual for reading. And I knew that from not only his command of language and his capacity to follow any verbal proceeding, but from actually seeing him read. Bibles, comics, novels, and even a newspaper at times.
There is a lot of literature out there from all kinds of high caliber individuals in all kinds of fields of study and professions who have discussed why it is important for the parents/leaders of a home to be serious about reading. I just wanna tell you my experience. From my experience, I encourage any parent to read with their children. Equally important, kids need to see their folks reading. That’s how the value of literacy tends to settle in the most. What a son sees his dad doing is what becomes important to him. Like I’ve said before, the most important thing a father can provide is an example. A boy sees his dad as the standard of manhood. Sees his dad value reading? Becomes a tenet of manhood. The next level, at least for me, was seeing it in action. All my life I’ve seen people get lost or confused by the unfiltered words of physicians, astronomers, attorneys, congress folk, engineers, philosophers, poets, realtors, and computer technicians. Most importantly, by underwriters and contracts. My dad isn’t one of those people. I mean, he might get confused at a coffee shop using a different language to describe drink sizes and additives, or by industry slang that isn’t yet inducted into a widely accepted lexicon somewhere. But that’s kinda normal. Like any man, any father or husband, my dad has his shortcomings. One thing he was not? A dummy. So it wasn’t an option for me. Repetition creates norms. So literacy and understanding became a norm for me.
While I was blessed with a mother who taught me to read, I was blessed with a dad who was an example of a man who reads. Even with the comic book reading. Truly, the internal dialogue bubbles and intros and outros of comics is part of why I write poetry the way I do. Language arts is essential. Comic books, movies, cartoons, music, stage production, and so much more in and beyond entertainment takes written communication to make it happen on a wide scale. At my day job, anyone can learn what we do without reading virtually anything. And many would like to. But the widely accepted terms allow for communication between people who may never meet, let alone be in the same room. That’s the “beauty” of it. Reading is essential. Whenever someone wants to communicate something important to them, especially in a way meant to outlast their mortality, they record it. Essentially, they write it down. The antediluvian guy. The rich guy. The poor guy. The good guy. The bad guy. The numbers guy. The random guy. Whether it is music or video, it is written physically or digitally onto something. It’s written. And it must be read. The zeros and ones that make up the codes and vibrations of universal intelligence and the rhythm of life itself? Written. Algorithms of existence and such? Written. Even if we can’t see sounds or feel patterns of time or cycles of life, they are written in the air. In the movement of nature. And they, too, can and have been made to be read. Reading is essential, in whatever form it can be done.
All Hands On Deck
 The kid’s mom and I are partners on a parenting team. Any team, any partnership, any organization, any tribe, any community can and most likely will experience internal difficulty due to differences between people. Differences in motives, intentions, opinions, beliefs, values, philosophies, etc. Often we see the fractures in groups grow until there is an irreparable break. We also often see groups, especially teams and families and businesses, rally themselves and center themselves around what matters most until harmony is achieved. Sometimes it’s around a championship. Sometimes a bottom line. Sometimes a wedding, a funeral, or a reunion. In this case, it’s around the kid.
 A couple of terms I often use when discussing the capacity of me, the wife, and the kid’s mom to handle business are “grown” and “adult”. Once in awhile “mature” slips in there because that’s really what I’m getting at when I say the other two. I’m super confident my views on what I’m about to address are heavily influenced by what I perceive to be the stigma of things like “child support” and “court orders” and what not. Most of my life I have heard of child support associated with the situation where a guy and a girl get busy and the girl gets pregnant, but they don’t follow up with or maintain a romantic or otherwise committed relationship, and their baby lives with the girl. The guy doesn’t want to have a long term commitment based on the life lasting result of a temporary thing. So to make sure at least their baby is taken care of no matter what the guy does, the girl goes to her local DSHS office and files for child support. The guy maybe sees his kid(s) on weekends and is brittle about the money that comes out of his check. Or he takes mostly under-the-table gigs so there’s no check for anything to be taken out of. Now I can list like fifty guys off the top of my head, each being the antithesis of what I just described. But, growing up, a guy paying child support was acid rain, floating around the hood in cloud of negative connotations, damaging the environment. So I never wanted to be that guy.
 In fact, as I’ve mentioned before, I’ve always wanted to be a husband and a father. So the idea of the courts and the rest of the system being involved in any way was always out of the question for me. Not simply because of what it represents to me, but because of how it looks to others. Namely the state and my place of work. And to my son. If he has a view of child support that associates it with baby mommas and baby daddies and drama and the things I did, I would hate for it to color me in a way that is untrue. Before the ink dried on the paternity test that told me the kid was my son, I was sending financial support to his mother. To this day, while the kid spends the academic year with his her, I contribute to his care. Not because I’m a stellar guy. It’s just right to do. And, after a few years in the works, his mother and I have a documented mutual agreement outlining a parenting plan we designed, which is inclusive of financial support of the kid. Because that’s what grown people do. I always felt that, if two adults have business between them, they should be able to handle it. Because that’s what grown people do. Counsel or advice is one thing. Kids need someone to come along and supervise their activities and monitor their interactions with others. To make sure everybody’s okay. When a guy is out there being selfish, he’s being a kid. And that court is the principal. The police are hall monitors. The court documents are a syllabus. Lawyers are tutors. Never had that for me and mine. Never will.
 There are other unfair issues that can be nipped in the bud when parents work as a team. Sometimes the parent with primary custody has a way of making the other parent seem like the bad guy, so to speak. It happens with men and women, but it happens much more easily to fathers. Not always because of the mom being intentionally messy or trifling. Some of it is accidental because of social norms, especially in the generations from before the turn of the century. A dad is super easy to make out to be a bad guy. Especially when he doesn’t live with the mother and child. Some mothers only call the father when they need something or when their child is causing problems. Especially the sons. Why? Because fathers in patriarchal societies like the one I live in are historically the providers and the disciplinarians, not the lovers and conversationalists. Since we are products of our environment, both the father and the mother in this situation have the expectation for the man to step in when things need fixing. When asses need whipping. When attitudes need adjusting. When things get out of control. Now that’s not so bad when the father lives at home, or if he lived in the same city and is easily accessible. But it has a way of being very detrimental to a healthy relationship if a guy is in my position. It makes kids feel like whenever they see dad, it’s because something has gone wrong. And they are what has gone wrong. And dad is there to fix them. So dad becomes the hammer. Especially when a boy is raising hell or being difficult and his mother sees his bad behavior as the reason to let him go be with his father. Kind of like in “Boyz n the Hood”. It would be better if a child would spend time with a parent just to build a relationship, versus to have a problem fixed. But I see that many naturally make dad the police, instead of a father.
 Sometimes I want to ask “So, at what point do we consider the child? And when do we start respecting everyone involved as people instead of pieces on a chessboard?” People have issues with each other and kids get caught in the middle of something that they didn’t cause. Parents compete and try to prove who the better parent is, sometimes to themselves, by buying affections or trying to be the fun mom or dad, while the actual relationship itself with their kid starves for attention. There are some married couples who struggle to make decisions that are good for their kids who live with them and see them everyday. So I can say I’m very fortunate to have an understanding with the kid’s mom. Realistically he is the reason why we are in each other’s lives, and at least until one of us three dies. We know it is about him. With respect and consideration one for another, because we’re adults and that’s just the regular old mature thing to do; but primarily about him. And it makes things peaceful. Because she can be a mom, and have a personal relationship with him, and live her life. And I can be a dad, and have a personal relationship with him, and live my life. When making decisions that heavily dictate the course of another person’s life, it’s typically a service to ourselves and to them to approach it as altruistically as possible. Because love builds. It purifies and binds. It creates and completes. It it isnt doing those things, it is not love. And it is in need of overhaul.
Chest & Chest, Jr.
One thing I’ve learned better than ever in the short time of two years of marriage is to be available. To be there. The family dynamics my wife has dealt with differ from those of mine in many ways. Her relationships with people in her family are also different than mine. So, when some unfortunate things happen, or when there are certain issues, I don’t know what to do. I don’t really have answers. I don’t know how the pain or stress feels; I can’t relate. What I can be is available. I can be there. I can be of help in several small ways that tend to make big impacts by taking some stuff off of people’s minds and subtracting from the stress. I have a phone to make connections. I have a mind to create. I have hands to work. I have a chest and arms to comfort. I have ears to listen. I am available. And that’s a big part of what being a dad is. Not every guy has the answers. Not every guy can relate to all of his son’s experiences. Not every guy instinctually feels out the next best course of action in every situation. But if a man has a desire to be there as a father, he then has everything in him necessary to be that. When a man makes himself available, the opportunities to be an answer will invariably arise and pull it out of you. This, I promise. And every guy can be there.
There is a difference between being in attendance and being present. Everyone has been on both ends of it. In church. In conversation. In relationships. At work. To me, the classroom setting is the consummate example. I’ve seen a lot of folk be in attendance. In their seat to say “here” or “present” when roll is called. Many were not truly present. Students regurgitate for twelve or thirteen years what their primary and secondary schools ask them to day by day, and they graduate (or not) and go on with life. Or, my regular experience, a guy sits in class thinking about his girlfriend with whom he had an unpleasant conversation during lunch. As much as he wants to comfort her and make things right, he knows he has football practice after school is over, and ditching homework to be on the phone with her all night is a no go. Has no options, but keeps trying to create one in his head. Butt in the seat, but mind down the hall, down the stairs, around the corner, across the yard, and in the back left corner with this girl. Some of us approach relationships much like a classroom. Even relationships with our kids. Little people that didn’t put in a request to exist. And born, sometimes, to people who don’t even want to be parents. So their life begins in itself unfair, then they are done a disservice by selfish irresponsible folk. To be fair, however, it can be an extremely difficult process to find a way to success in a situation where one’s heart is not, but obligation is. So I have much respect for those of us who have faked it until we made it. Been in attendance investing time until presence came along. I’m not only talking about single parents, divorces, and stuff like that. It happens in “perfect homes”, too.
Our presence and our absence speak volumes about our priorities. Where we are says so very much about how we think of… well… everything. Ourselves, other people, our communities, the world, the environment, education, politics, etc. Where we put ourselves is where we think we should be. Where we find value. Sometimes we find value in places we don’t necessarily want to be. Sometimes there are places that seem really nice, but we don’t value it enough to get ourselves there. Which is to say where we are not shows what we do not value. A dad showing up at a track meet is important. It is equally important at a spelling bee. And, as they say, showing up is half the battle. A dad’s got to be present. Just as present for the day by day stuff as for the discipline and fun. We don’t get to be all super involved for climactic moments when we haven’t invested in the in between, where character is built. That’s how we get disconnected over time. We have to give ourselves to our children. I don’t believe we need to give them our whole selves, but our true selves.
We Ain't Friends
I don’t believe in really being friends with my children. Honestly, I don’t believe any parent should be their child’s friend. I understand how we can take on roles or fill in where filling in is necessary, like how single parents have to pick up what another person is supposed to be there to pick up and is not, but it needs to be done. But as much as a mother will never be a father, I don’t see a parent being a friend.
I am Zyon’s dad. Even if we became peers in terms of accomplishments, maturity, influence, etc. Or if my son surpassed me in every single way. It is still always my job at the least to be available for consultation on life. My responsibility to be a dad. I have been a friend to my son in the context of sports, athletic competition, and conversation on certain topics. I’ve allowed us to be peers in some moments so he can see how we are in this father and son thing as partners. As long as he needs me to help him stay on task, it is very much a power over situation. But if we are together in the pursuit of a desired goal (a clean house, a new bathroom, a healthy line of communication, a Master’s degree, etc.) is is about the family and the community as much as it is about him or myself. Makes certain efforts a privilege, instead of an oppressive burden meant only for his personal gain or my personal honor. But there are a lot of things I would not be seen doing with or for my son, at least not the same way his friends would.
I would hang out, shop, or cook with my son. But I would always see him as a jewel to protect. I would never chase girls or women with him. I see this much more often than I use to imagine I would. The wife and I recently caught the episode of “Soul Food” where Maxine busted in on her father-in-law giving it to her husband’s former secretary, who was really digging him and trying to get it from him. Like, that’s nasty. To me, my dad has no business chasing the same woman I would go for, so to say. We are in literally in different generations. I would never get high with my son. Mind you I’ve never smoked anything other than tobacco a couple of times being a bad kid. I would never argue with my son. Especially while he’s a dependent. There’s no need for it. His thoughts and ideas are welcome. The wife and I are the leadership of our home. We work together, and we have the final say. It’s that simple. I would never give my son my permission or blessing to make compromising decisions or do self-destructive things for the sake of being the cool dad. That would be literally retarded. My job is to be the right dad.
And this is with all respect due to everyone’s temperament, everyone’s process, and everyone’s abilities. Do I believe parents and children can have healthy relationships where the power over structure is dominant? Yes. I am a living testament. I often laugh and eat and have a good old adult time with both of my parents. Especially now that I’m married, have my own apartment, my own car, and my own kid. And I can’t remember the last time I asked either if them to borrow money. Do I believe parents and their kids can foster a respect one for another where there is a minimal power over structure between them? Yes. I know a handful of people who are living proof. And they aren’t all “white”. And they have yet to shoot up theatres, schools, or bomb malls. Everyone is a product of their environment, including the culture that surrounds and informs their perspective on things. We all live in a context. And, as parents and children alike, we all have the responsibility to choose what’s best for us and those we love.
A Secure Environment
Yeah, I’m gonna talk about it. Child support comes in many forms, but I’m gonna talk about the kind most of us think of when we first hear the phrase. But first, let me deal with something. Much of history writing and lawmaking is governed by men. And, all beliefs and ideas of a natural order of things considered, it’s been a man’s world for two reasons. First, the average man is physically stronger than the average woman. Most of basic patriarchy tends to be the result of a man being able to out muscle women and children as a last resort to enforce his will and establish dominion. As a result, women and children are viewed as property or subordinates at best in a lot of well known and influential cultures. It wasn’t very long ago women without the name of some man couldn’t handle certain business. Men making the rules, typically in their favor. Which brings me to the second part of this preliminary disclaimer; women get pregnant. Women become mothers. Women have to take time off of work, or maybe have their bodies permanently altered, maybe come close to death, and nurse a child to maturity. Since I was little, I remember kids always going with the mother after a breakup or divorce, and the father always living somewhere else paying child support, almost as if that’s how it’s supposed to be when people go separate ways. With men looked at as the primary breadwinners as the norm for so many years, it is as if the strong is taking care of the weak. But, these days, new norms sweep the nation. Things have changed.
When asked my views on child support, as always, the question came from a man. A man who felt it impossible to be anything more than a child support deposit that sees his daughter on weekends. But, for me and the kid’s mom, it is a partnership. While it hasn’t always been a smooth road, it has been progressive. There were times when the tension came from a difference of opinion. It has grown into an effort to work together. We have an agreement outside of the courts. I was a large proponent of it because I always viewed court ordered child support to be a mark of immaturity. Immaturity on a father’s part for thinking of a woman and children as a package deal, versus individual people with needs that supercede whatever relationship didn’t work out. It is always an honor and a privilege to care for another person, let alone provide for my own kid. It also seemed to indicate immaturity on the part of the parents. I always felt that if two grown folks with children they love get together, they can make a plan without getting other people involved. Without having others in their business. I never liked the stigma of being a father, a citizen of Black America, with uninvested politicians having anything to say as to how we raise our son. It’s not the case for every man, Black or otherwise, but it was for many I know. I didn’t want that for me. Didn’t need it.
As a long distance father, having my son with me for a short summer out of the year, there are three things I can do: send money to help ensure he is provided for, call regularly, and visit sometimes. When I send money, many have said, I have paid the kid’s mother to take care of him. Naturally, I disagree, because this is not a business. Maybe ran like a business, but it is definitely more personal than one. This is a lifelong partnership to see a person become their best. Which is why I believe that child support is, well, to support the child. When I provide funds to support the kid, it is my money in his mother’s hands, for the purpose of taking care of our child. It does not become her money and no longer my concern. A good example of this is church. People give in many ways for many reasons. And the expectation for a result depends on a mutual understanding. When I put money into an offering receptacle at church specified for an event, there is an agreement that it is for that event. If someone on staff appears with clothes equalling my contribution, but the event lacks food equalling my contribution, then we have most likely experienced a misunderstanding and a misappropriation of funds. Or, let us say the Bishop sends their head administrator to scope a site for the next couples retreat and secure reservation blocks upon standards being met. That administrator, that representative of the ministry, reserves cabins and basic amenities, but none of the activities are covered. But the administrator has a reservation at a nearby lodge for their family next weekend they didn’t pay for. Is it fair to say the money was put in their qualified and authorized hands, so that made it no longer the Bishop’s business or the congregation’s concern what happened after that? No. Is it fair when a parent receives child support and incorporates restaurant and liquor store visits in their budget, which wasn’t part of it before? No. Is it fair to use the money for cable bills, but not have basic medical coverage for the child? No.
The most important philosophy I got from my experience, and mostly from evaluating the experience of others, is to handle our business in a way that makes child support from the other parent unnecessary. If a parent can, a parent should. We’re probably already single parents anyway. Or, like myself, we’re married. But make the other person’s contribution extra. Nothing to do with how well y’all get along. Nothing to do with relationship history. Nothing to do with religious beliefs. Nothing to do with who they got with after. Nothing to with them starting an alternate lifestyle and getting a sex change. Everything to do with a parent and their child being emotionally and financially stable no matter what anyone else does. I’ve known many single parents who kept child support as a regular part of their budget. When the other parent started working under the table to avoid payment, they had to borrow money and get a second job. Or when their child turned eighteen and the court order was fulfilled, the money stopped coming in, and they felt the loss of a little financial freedom they never realized they had. Also, when the other parent loses their job, there is no money for them to send, and they become flustered. We gotta have recourse. And not the kind where we tap into retirement funds or other non-emergency stashes. If we make it so that our children are provided for no matter what, then anything else becomes an allowance or a windfall that can be directed toward things like college funds, investments, savings, special occasions, or other creative opportunities for the child. Also, if the other parent is a trifling bum, the stress and anger and emotional reactions that make things harder don’t have to take place. It’s easier to have peace when we don’t need people we don’t want. Love yourself. Love your people. Make it hard for frustration to be comfortable where we live. Make it easy for love to flow.
 I whip the kids. Yes. Yes I do. I also implement timeout, restriction, relatively intense physical labor, and lecturing as forms of discipline. I also do what I am comfortable with calling torture. I’ll pay for me and the kid to join my brother’s family at Wild Waves on a hot summer day, just to follow them around and watch them have fun. Just drinking water, going pee, and sweating. That’s torture, bro. Or if my son decides he wants to destroy some shoes my dad got him, or something of somebody else’s out of jealousy, I might block off and create a mini demolition area. Tell him to bring out a toy or device he enjoys (which I’ve paid for of course), hand him a hammer, and tell him to get the smashing. Torture. The kid did second grade here in Seattle with us. Not only did he keep coming home with torn up clothes, but we discovered that for weeks he had been throwing good homemade lunch away so he could eat hot chips and drink cheap chocolate milk. I remember my wife (yeah I’m telling on you, babe) gave him some cash and made him throw it in the trash. She sat on the sofa, handed him a variety of bills, then told him to get the receptacle from the bathroom. Asked him what he wanted to do with it. Made my guy toss in a bill for everything he tore up and threw away. That boy’s face was still wet when I got home from work. I would have cried, too. Torture. He probably would have loved a beating at that moment. But he’s quite precocious, paying attention to what happens when he does certain things, so he decides what punishment is worth what crime. So we think ahead and keep him on his toes. I’ve taken him for ice cream after he cussed out kids at school. Just to let him know that he’s always my son and I always care about him and want him to be happy. The boy was waiting for a punishment that never came. Torture, man. But I’m in the process with him all the way.
 While I’m out here in the world, I am becoming increasingly aware of a difference between some of us dads. Some of us don’t want to be parents. Of course that doesn’t sit well with me, but I’ve wanted to be a husband and a father all of my life, so manhood and and fatherhood go hand in hand within the context that is Lewis. I can’t speak for other people with other passions. But I can judge the fruit of a tree. These are the dads who we usually won’t find at a conference or meeting at their kid’s school. These are the ones usually beating kids out of anger; becoming frustrated with non-compliance, versus concerned with personal development. These are usually the ones passing their kids off or neglecting them to pursue what matters to themselves, consistently available for photo opportunities that make them look involved on social media, but are never around to help with homework. These are the ones who don’t want the inconvenience that comes with making people. Because that is what having a child is. Person making. When my child is being punished, I kinda am, too. I grew up around a lot of Black folk who said “Timeout’s for White folk”. Listen. A well executed timeout for an extremely hyperactive boy? Add familiarity to video and computer games with lots of color and movement? Man. My type of timeout for the kid is tough. I’ll find a plain, off white corner with no window available for his peripheral vision, take him to it, and tell him to get into a comfortable position he can be in for a long time with his toes touching the baseboards. I’ll say give me twenty minutes without making a sound or a move. If he conveniently “has to pee” he can go on himself, and he can hand wash it while on restriction after. But all this means I have to sit there and watch to make sure he follows through. We’re both on timeout. Not everyone is willing to take out that time. What is necessary is viewed as a sacrifice to some of us, instead of the norm. That’s where love makes the difference.
 Speaking of love, the point of all punitive measures as a dad is correction, with discipline as the conduit of the process. Discipline in itself isn’t punitive. It’s the intentional process of development. Study, training, practice, etc. Things that hone and grind what is already wrought, and eventually increase one’s capacity for growth and mastery. Correction is pretty much what it is. Like truth or purity, correction is given and taken with positive assumptions attached to it for its connotations over time. But it isn’t necessarily making something righteous. Just right in the sense that it is not wrong in a practical sense. Punishment is all bad. Suffering, pain, loss, penalty, severe treatment. That’s all bad all by itself. Until, that is, we add purpose to it. And this is one of the ways we fathers teach justice (or injustice and abuse) to our kids. When we cast retribution on our kids without purpose (notice I did not say cause, as a reaction typically is an instinctual thing, but a response is typically thoughtful and with a purpose), we do them a disservice. Executing punishment in that vein for infractions instills fear of transgressions. The fear can turn into a fear of becoming a transgressor instead of a wrongdoer. Like they will follow the rules, but do all the stuff that the rules don’t cover. Or they are afraid of making mistakes and never get to see the side of dad that wants them to do better. It works into their self view.
 Now let’s slap those lovetastic connotations onto correction. Correction makes better. Love makes people better. Love is the interest in people being better, beyond just their behavior conforming to satisfy the prerequisites of social normality. If folk aren’t getting better as a result of our disciplining, it probably isn’t discipline. And, even though we may love them, it might be something other than love motivating us to run our heads into a proverbial brick wall over and over again. Do I have the answer? No. Am I the master of all things in my domain? No. I’ve probably just been through the same ups and downs as anyone else, and have done some processes of elimination. My advantage over some guys is that I want to be a dad. I love being a dad. But there are many out there who think it “cracks” as much as I do. Potty training, staying home with a sick kid, working overtime for sometimes ungrateful acting kids, burning through petro like it’s going out of style for games and practices, etc. All of it is cuss word-ing wonderful. And those little people in the making deserve all the love.
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