Tag Archives: fatherhood

Raising Strong Women

The first man a girl ever loves is her father. I am the most important man in their lives and I always will be. They need to know that I don’t take that responsibility lightly. Strength, courage, intelligence, empathy, assertiveness, and self-confidence are just some of the things they need from me. Only I can provide the support and guidance they need to stand strong against the vile culture that assaults them on all sides; on TV, in magazines, even walking through the mall, only I can bring them to a healthier place. I am willing to do whatever I have to to protect them from the world around them.

A little extreme you may say, well just think about it; daughters beam when they speak of their fathers if their father is the man he should be to them. My daughters watch each move I make, they laugh when I laugh, they cry when I cry, they light-up when I encourage them and frown when I reprimand them. My path to this teaching world I have learned on my own and I find it is in opposition to how many raise their children. I am left of politically correct and when it comes to raising my daughters, still I stand firm in my beliefs, even as they contradict the conventional wisdom. I don’t believe in princesses, vanity, or pedestals. What I want for my daughters is to grow up to be the kind of woman I have always admired; poised and beautiful, but also strong, humble, and unafraid of her intelligence. This goes against much of what is sold to us by the media, that women should be taken care of and that to be ‘somebody’ you have to ‘find somebody to love’. I don’t believe it, and never have, and it is probably part of the reason why my marriage failed; I wanted to be there for my x but I didn’t need her to make me whole and expected the same from her; to stand together but have the strength to stand alone. I want the same for them, to be able to stand alone first as a whole person, not depend on someone to make them who they are.

The path there is many faceted but I think it starts with a spiritual foundation. I have them in what I called CCD, to learn that there is a God and He is there for them in those dark hours when life comes crouching in and hope is but a glimmer on an unreachable horizon. God, I pray, will also teach them humility. Humility is not a weakness as some may say, it is based, for me, in the idea that fault we find in others is what we see as fault in our own being. With humility I think a child, especially a daughter, can gain the proper perspective on themselves, they can see themselves for who they really are; unique, but not above anyone. The tricky part becomes balancing her need to feel special and unique in a fathers eyes and knowing that every person has equal worth.

I’ve found the best way to teach humility is to live it, as with anything you want your child to embrace, humility must be modeled. If you love music or reading, the best way to instill that love in your child is by doing it, humility is no different. This has been one of the hardest things as a man I have had to learn to do but what alternative do I have, to deceive my self and in turn them? Life is bigger then just me and just thinking about them has been a jumping off point for me, but it must also encompass the whole of humanity; you must strive for success in life but also help those around you.

Making understanding of who you are, where you are going, and where you come from paramount will help my girls to fulfill their potential but, it must be accurate. If they see themselves honestly they will be grounded in the real world and will find their true significance. They will move from self-centeredness and pride to caring and quiet strength. Pride and self centeredness, as Henry Fairlie once wrote, “excite us to take too much pleasure in ourselves, (and) do not encourage us to take pleasure in our humanity, what is commonly shared by all of us as social beings.” I totally embrace this notion and will try my hardest to teach it to my daughters; that humility brings with it deep joy and satisfaction b/c it keeps us from being self-absorbed. What greater gift can I give them beyond true happiness for their lives?

This of course is not how a princess lives and Disney, as in many American homes, came storming into our lives early and from all sides. After Thomas the Tank Engine, my oldest daughters earliest influence was Cinderella. At 3 she wanted to pretend we were getting married and there always had to be a Prince Charming in our games, and there always had to be a happily ever after. Meg Meeker writes that “there are two types of women in the world: princesses and pioneer women. Princesses believe they deserve a better life and expect others to serve them. Pioneer women expect that any improvement in their lives will come through hard work; they are in charge of their happiness.” One type, the princess, is what I fight when raising my daughters, the other is what I want them to be; for happiness, for strength, for piece of mind as they become women.

Life has taught most of us that you can’t expect someone to solve your problems and that all your wants and desires won’t be fulfilled. As a father I want more then anything to take care of all their problems but I can’t allow myself to do this, I need to teach them that sometimes, some things need to be taken care of by them, for themselves, so they don’t fall into the victim mentality that is so prevalent in our culture. I love them completely, and they know this, but they must also realize they are not the center of the universe; love should be peppered by the notion that love needs to be appreciated and you should be humble and thankful for it. They are not entitled to love, many children grow up in loveless homes, and the love they have in their’s should be respected and cherished, not taken for granted.

I have had to learn to not indulge them and sometimes say “no, I can’t do what you want now, I have work of my own to do” or “you can do that yourself”. This teaches them that they must take some responsibility, even at this young age, for their well-being. If I always do everything for them they will not take ownership of their lives and will fall, I fear, into the mind-set where everything bad or wrong is someone else’s fault and that someone else should fix any problems they have. This neediness can only be stopped by teaching them to act confidently, to be pragmatic, and dig deep in themselves to fix what is wrong in their lives; they must know that ultimately they are the only ones who will determine their fate.

The best way to get from dependence as children to independence as adults is to teach them pragmatism, give them the knowledge and tools they need to be a problem solver; to be able to step back, separate, see clearly, and develop a course of action, a program-goal-action mindset. This is what will help my girls to grow up and be the strong, independent women I know they are. My x-wife says the girls live under ‘my reign’, I have created a world of discipline that, as a means to an end, is what will teach them the skills they need to grow into happy adults; confident and self-sufficient. They will seek out healthy relationships, not end up in a relationship because they are co-dependent and can’t function on their own. My x-wife believes because I expect them to clean their rooms, set the table for dinner, stick to a schedule, be on time, and take care of themselves I am making them live under some totalitarian regime. Maybe it is on some level because their freedom is derived from the security that things will be the same for them day in and day out, that their lives are consistent; they are free to live their lives as children because I have created a structured world for them, a world where they are learning to solve problems and think for themselves, where they are learning that grit and self-determination will get them further then expecting someone to do everything for them. This is the harsh reality of a world they are rapidly approaching.

This is not to say that they can do as they like, when they like; the big decisions are already made for them. The security of knowing I will be there after school and that they will have dinner at 5, that bath time is at 7 and bed will be around 8 is what allows them to be free, they don’t have to worry about these things. Within that structure is where they learn to do for themselves, things like getting a drink or snack, resolving a problem like a lost sock or wanting the same toy as her sister are the things they must learn to do for themselves. They do not have to worry about anything but a few tasks and to act right in their day-to-day interactions within the family and with others in school and at the stores where we shop. When a problem does arise they are learning that sometimes they can solve the problem themselves, when they fight over a doll or can’t find a toy, but also that I will be there to guide them and help them solve the larger problems like not getting along with a classmate. The largest problem in their lives I am also letting them deal with on their own, the termination of their parents marriage, I am allowing them to grieve and encouraging the idea we will all survive and be the better for it. It is the one problem I can’t help them find a solution for.

So by the dual edge sword of humility and pragmatism I am fighting the culture wars, the one that sells false beauty and dependence. Will I win? That remains to be seen, but I think that I have at least given them a leg up. If I remain vigilant as we enter their teenage years, as they push me further away, I think that they will leave for college one day on top of the world, able to do anything and ready to stand alone.

Some facts about fathers and daughters:

* Toddlers securely attached to fathers are better at solving problems (M. Easterbrooks and Wendy A Goldberg in “Toddler Development in the Family: Impact of Father Involvement and Parenting Characteristics”)

* With dads present at home kids manage school stress better. (Rebekah Levin Coley “Children’s Socialization Experiences and Functioning in Single Mother Households“)

* Girls whose fathers provide warmth and control achieve higher academic success. (Rebekah Levin Coley “Children’s Socialization Experiences and Functioning in Single Mother Households“)

* Girls who are close to there fathers exhibit less anxiety and withdraw behaviors. (A Morcoen and K Verschuren “Representation of self and socioemotional competence in kindergartners: differential and combined effects of attachment to mothers and fathers“)

* Girls with doting fathers are more assertive (Journal of American Medical association 10, pgs 823-32)

* Daughters who perceive that their fathers care allot about them, who feel connected to their fathers, have significantly fewer suicide attempts and fewer instances of body dissatisfaction, depression, low self-esteem, substance abuse, and unhealthy weight. (American Journal of Preventive Medicine 1 pg 59-66)

* Girls with involved fathers are twice as likely to stay in school (US Department of Health and Human Services, National Center for Health Statistics, Survey on Child Health 1993)

* A daughters self-esteem is best predicted by her father’s physical affection. (Greg J Duncan, Martha Hill, and W. Jean Yeung “Fathers’ Activities and Children’s Attainments” Father Facts on http://www.fatherhood.org)

* Girls with fathers who are involved in their lives have higher quantitative and verbal skills and higher intellectual functioning. (Harris Goldstein “Fathers’ absence and cognitive developments of 12-17 year-olds“)

* Girls with good fathers are less likely to flaunt themselves to seek male attention. (Claudette Wassil-Grimm, Where’s Daddy? How Divorced, Single and Widowed Mothers Can Provide What’s Missing When Dad’s Missing)

* Girls with involved fathers wait longer to initiate sex and have lower rates of teen pregnancy.(Lee Smith “The new welfare of illegitimacy” Fortune April 1994 pg 81-94)

* 76% of teen girls said that fathers influenced their decisions on whether to become sexually active.(Mark Clemens, Parade, Feb. 1997; E M Hetherington and B Martin “Family Interactions”)

* Kids do better academically if their fathers establish rules and exhibit affection.(C D Ryff and M M Seltzer, The Parental Experience in Midlife)

Do Right Woman…. maybe not

About a year ago I was watching Chris Hayes on MSNBC and the discussion was about men controlling women by controlling their reproductive rights. The discussion turned to what is a man’s role in a relationship where a pregnancy occurs, should he expect fidelity, and is expecting sexual loyalty in a marriage or partnership where children are involved a form of control?

Another day and another time I will regale you with the turmoil of a custody battle that ended in an anti-climatic whimper. Sufice it to say I fought for custody, I had pages and pages of evidence mapping out my x Billie’s infidelity that was put up against her ascertation that “because I breast fed them” she should have custody, child support, and alimony. Thank God the courts in Maryland make you go to mediation when a dirovce / custody case is brought before them because it brought us to an agreement in which our kids live with me and have ample visitation with their mother.

 Many men do not jump in the fire and fight this fight, resigning themselves to the idea they will be a weekend figure in their children’s life even when their partner commited audultry. I may have done the same thing if I felt there was a good reason for the termination of our marriage but, alas, there wasn’t. My x-wife decided she wasn’t happy and took up with another man, she had him at our house and in our bed while I was at work; she embraced her sexual ‘rights’ to not have to be beholden to any one man, even her husband and the father to her children. In her mind, as much as I can gather, she thought she would take up with this other man, get the kids, and I would support them. She found out different….

It lead me over time to some serious reflection on the question posed above. The following thoughts on this should apply only to women who have made the conscious decision to get married and have children and then begin a sexual affair while still married. Marriage is sacred, even if it is failing, and ending it is the ethical thing to do if it ‘time to move on’ or it’s ‘not working’. I got married to take care of my x-wife and our children, to be there for all our lives. My family was the most important thing to me and all I asked was that she remained faithful, that she was sexually loyal. I am not saying that she had to be ready to drop to her knees at my whim, I am saying she should have, when entering a marriage contract, stuck to the idea that both of us would cease sleeping with other people and give up our sexual freedom.

 Often this kind of loyalty is made fun of in our culture but, without it, what motivation does a man have to stay and support his wife. She told me once that she had to follow her heart, that her happiness was paramount to anything else. I feel bad for her, that she was sold a bill of goods about precieved sexual rights that is in direct contrast to the duty she had to me and our children when we married. The feminist revolution, as understood by me, is a protest against female sexual regulation and this is what the conversation on Chris Hayes’ show was about. The slogans are many “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle”; “A woman has a sacred right to control her own sexuality”; “End human sacrifice! Don’t get married!”. Anne Donchin, has put forth the proposition that a women’s primary object should be a society in which “women can shape their reproductive experiences to further ends of their choosing.”

 Now don’t get me wrong, I believe that a single person, man or woman, should be able to have sex on their own terms. I believe in the Supreme Court’s ruling in Planned Parenthood vs Casey which speaks about “(t)he ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives”. I believe a person should be able to leave a marriage if they aren’t happy and they have exhusted all resources to resolve whatever problems there are. I don’t believe a person has a right to commit adultry and still get the rewards of being married, mainly custody and support. If you want a sexual relationship with someone other then your spouse do it the right way and get a divorce first, don’t violate the sanctity of marriage and don’t expect for your x to support you once you left.

In what other situation does our society reward someone for cheating by giving them a prize? Why should a husband who has had the right of fidelity in marriage, or the blessing of family, taken away be beholden to support their ex-wife? This seems to me to create a woman who is, yes, sexually emancipated, as Ms. Donchin would like, but unwilling to build something, a patnership, on which anyone, husband or child, can depend.

Marriage is a contract and each party has a duty to the relationship. A duty by definition is the giving up of something that will make you happy (in this case sexual freedom) for the good of some thing else (the family). I am not against someone finding true happiness, but in a civilized society there are roles and rules we all play and follow and if you chose not to follow them you should not be rewarded. The roles and rules of a family are defined as people remaining faithful, having sexual loyalty, and fulfilling their duty to their partner and their children. Marriage is a full time job and I fear most people don’t ever clock in. When you don’t put in the time, become bored, and seek sexual gratification to fulfill some void shouldn’t you be held accountable for your choice.

A woman’s sexual rights when weighed against the idea of fidelity in marriage do not have to be mutually exclusive. If a wife wants to embrace sexual freedom over monogamy that is her prerogative, but we as a country should let it have consequences when it comes to marriage. A wife’s fidelity keeps a husband under obligation to her, it is the blessing she gives him in children and family and home. On the other side a man offers the woman many benefits to be faithful in a marriage; he becomes a provider, creating stablity, and allows her to have a family. What the husband brings to a marriage can not be taken back. What the wife’s brings, the gift of family, is taken away in over half of marriages and threatened in all: she can walk away with the kids and the money so she never really gives the man a family, the mutual consideration, which is the exchange for supporting her. The husband almost always finds in divorce court why he got married and worked for her and the children during the marriage had no permanence. It was given as his part of a quid pro quo that is binding on him but unenforceable on her.

What is society’s guarantee that when the woman enters into a contract of marriage (or partnership when children are involved) that she will remain faithful, how is the contract enforced? It isn’t for the most part; the man, in parenthood, has only a non-biological contribution (beyond providing half the DNA) to creating and bringing life into the world. Does this biological contribution on the part of the woman grant her more rights to the child’s upbringing as Billie thought? No, because there must be equality in marriage and child rearing of which a large part is that both partners are faithful, truthful, and honest; without these things there is no family.

No fault divorces have made it easy to walk away because you want sexual freedom. This is coupled with the idea that a child belongs with it’s mother (the tender years doctrine) and that a man must support the woman. It has created a culture where a book called “What Every Woman Should Know About Divorce and Custody; Judges, Lawyers, and Therapists Share Winning Strategies on How to Keep the Kids, The Cash, and Your Sanity” becomes a blueprint for encouraging women to embrace infidelity because, as the title implies, they can get the benefits without giving anything in return.. It needs to be changed. Courts now are supposed to follow what is called ‘the best interest of the child’ doctrine, but 90% of homes with a single parent are headed by a woman, so the playing field is obviously not level. I wish that courts looked at who breached the contract, man or woman, be it by abuse, infidelity, or simple selfishness, and rule on what each party should get by who was at fault. In the case of infidelity it is a choice that is made, sexual freedom over sexual loyalty, and we should all have to be responsible for our actions and live with our choices.

From The Begining…

The best place to start any story if probably the begining. My problem is that the begining often seems a moving target. Was it the birth of my oldest daughter or the day my x-wife left, was it the day I found out my youngest was blind in one eye or the day I went to court to get custody of my kids? I would love to think it was a happy day, that cold Feburary afternoon I rushed my X (I’ll call her Billie) to Harbor Hospital and a few hours later was left holding a tiny person; so dependent, so innocent, and so liberating, teaching duty, peace and true love in an instant. But in reality this story begins a few years later, on a hot July afternoon..

When you are a partner in parenting it is a different dynamic for both people. I worked outside the home, she stayed home and worked taking care of the kids. After a rough first few years we settled in to a routine and got comfortable, maybe minus the passion of our early days together but, nonetheless a good place (well, at least I did). I was happy and ready to dedicate my life to the two children I had had with my beautiful wife. Other partrnerships work out differently, sometimes both parents work, sometimes just the mom does, but in most, from what I can discern, people settle in and live their lives resigned to the world they have built together. Regardless of the form, both parents have a roll that is defined by them and for their children. Sometimes it just happens, others it is planned out; with us it just happened and was pretty traditional. I would come home from work, play with the kids, make dinner, she would bathe and put them to bed while I settled in to watch some TV. Most times it is an up and down life with moments of pure joy and dark days of doubt in our choices, but regardless, when it works it is because both partners feel they chose what they are doing and what they are doing is right for them.

It wasn’t the case with me and Billie, Billie was not happy, she didn’t like being ‘stuck’ as a stay at home mom and wife. Perhaps it goes back to the day she came down stairs and said “I’m pregnant” and I said “I guess we have to get married”. Not a ringing endorsement of any of it on my part. In those days our relationship was on its last legs, I was bored and ready to move on, and she felt, from what I can gather, that I wasn’t the person she needed. I have never been one to stand and talk to my girlfriend while she did the dishes or felt I had to wake up next to her every morning, and I never expected those things from her. I like sleeping on the couch, I like the space and not having someone trying to hold or cuddle me. That’s my inner Aquarius and she knew that is what she was getting. I knew too what I was getting, a flowing tide of Piscean emotion and needs that would only grow exponentially when a pregnancy was added. In that moment we chose to accept each other as we were because together we had created a life, or so I thought.

We married, went the whole nine yards, full on wedding at a church, open bar reception, honeymoon in Nashville. But things wern’t all rosey, I had decided nothing had changed in my life; sleeping all day, working at night in a bar and generally being abscent from Billie and our daughter’s life. A newborn is hard for a dad, they feed, sleep, and poop for the first few months and I was relegated to diaper duty because our daughter refused a bottle, and was strictly breast fed. This left me feeling left out. I took them to the doctor and held them when asked too, but I was not completely involved so I would slip out when they napped and come home drunk and useless to Billie in the child care deaprtment.

Billie was not happy with me and left. After a few months I convinced her I could change my ways and she believed me, came back, and we had another daughter. I quit my job, got a new one in a hardware store with more ‘normal’ hours and we moved far from the city to try and reset our life and start over, but it didn’t change how she felt or the memory of my mispent first years of marriage. I wasn’t good at being a husband, but I tried, reading books, talking to those I knew who made it work and trying to do the things she wanted of me, the things she thought a husband should be. I had given up on bars and such but I was still aloof at best and detachted at worst when it came to me and Billie.

This is not to say I didn’t love Billie, it just wasn’t in that Romeo Julliet kind of way. The problem was it was a kind of ‘duty’ love, I wanted to take care of her and the kids and I resigned myself to this. I was 34 at this point and had lived my life to it’s fullest and was ready to enter a new phase, a quiet family life. Billie was 26 and, I think, saw this great opportunity and challenge as the thing that took her youth away. When coupled with her inablity to change me into the man who would sit and talk while she did dishes, it left us in a bad place and ultimately left our children scared from the termination of their parents marriage.

Not long after we moved she admitted to me she had slept with a friend of hers when we had split up. It took some time but I forgave her, problem was I couldn’t forget and had a tinge of doubt always floating around. Turns out it was rightly so because she began an affair with this person and he did the old Don Juanius and convinced her she would be better off with him. You know the routine, ‘I’m your friend and such a good listener’, then on to ‘trash the husband with the ammunition for being a good friend’, finally ‘hey I can do everything for you he doesn’t’. So one day in July of 2008 she said she was in love with someone else and after giving her what I am sure was the strangest look ever said “”What should I do?”, my answer “Go be with him”.

Who knows what she thought would happen, or even if she had thought about it at all, but that is where my story really begins. In a matter of minutes I was alone as a parent with a two and four year old and had a lot to learn real quick. I may have been a bad husband (I would like to think flawed because my devotion and fidelity to her never waivered) but I was always a good father, abeit one part of a larger partnership, and it was this moment that put all my skills to the test.