The Inspiration for this article…

The idea for this article began to bubble in my head late on the first Monday after Christmas.  This year was a little different, Christmas fell on a Saturday.  As federal contractors, we-Federal employees and contractors received our day off on Friday.

Anyway, since I don’t celebrate the holiday, it’s a regular day for me.  I even worked the holiday, because no one wanted to work the shift.  It was a great weekend because I got to see colleagues that I hadn’t seen in a while.  Many people that I saw that weekend either have little children or they have children on the way.  

One guy that I saw that holiday weekend was Mr. R.  He’s a great guy.  Mr. R and his wife have four children.  His youngest child is about two years old at the time of this writing.  Apparently, he wasn’t into the holidays himself, but he and his wife made sure that their children got the full experience of Christmas…  

Somewhere in the conversation, I asked him, “How was your childhood?”  He replied, “I had a great childhood!”  He said it with such passion that it caught me off guard.  He said it so loud that we had a great big laugh about it.  

 

Now it’s a problem…

To begin a point that I wanted to touch on, I told him of an experience that an old female coworker told me about. She basically said, “When I was in kindergarten, there were these two kids from this family that practiced this certain religious faith.  When we would have birthday parties, due to their families’ request, they had to sit outside while we celebrated birthdays.  They would cry and cry and cry.  I’ll never forget that.”

That story impacted me so much when she told it to me.  I felt it deeper because I experienced things at a young age that gave me an insight into children. 

 

“If a child is in an environment where all of the children are experiencing the same events (i.e. fatherlessness, no birthdays, etc.), they don’t actually “feel it”.  But when they are in a group of children, and they are the only ones missing something that they see their peers have, now it’s a problem.”

 

I remember, in one agency where I worked, there was a daycare.  The cut-off time to pick up the children was at 6 p.m.  After 6 p.m., they’d charge the parents per minute.  There were one or two parents who were notoriously late.  Almost every day, the mother or father of these two different children was late.  And around 5:30-5:45 pm, you’d hear one of these children yell extremely loud.  Why?  Because they saw their classmates being picked up by their parents.  Eventually, the classroom would be empty with them being the only children left.  That’s when it would sink in.  They’d explode in tears!  I’d see this over and over for years.   

Anyway, after my colleague explained his great childhood, I told him that even though I went through a lot of bad things as a child, holidays were actually the most enjoyable times of my childhood.  Whatever abuse that I was used to experiencing was always tempered around this time.  And don’t forget the gifts!

 

Let Them be Children….

We began to talk about the importance of letting children grow up as children.  Not making them into parents, by putting a lot of weight on them, because we are chasing our own pursuits (if possible).  Let them be children!  Let them experience everything that children are supposed to experience.  

 

They need stability…

We spoke about what happens when you create an unstable environment for children.  I explained to him, that I learned from personal experience that:

“When your household is unstable, it impacts the child.  They can’t really concentrate if there is instability in the home. If the electricity is off from time to time, this impacts them.  If there are constant arguments or domestic abuse in the house, this impacts them.  If there is violence or substance abuse in the household, this impacts them.  If there is child molestation in the household, this impacts them.  You must keep peace and stability in your household, so that your children can emotionally grow and not degenerate.  They become undeveloped adults with a lot of issues.  They then are unable to be good parents to their children, because they are dealing with their own issues. And this can go on for generations until someone decides to break the cycle. “

My coworker and I spoke about letting our children enjoy their childhood and be children!  

 

They Lost Their Sons

I later took up this conversation with another coworker of mine the next day.  I brought up the conversation that I had the day before with our colleague, Mr. R.  But I went further.  I spoke to her about the men that I knew that lost their sons.  Over the past 20 years, I spoke to plenty of men and women about their sons that they lost.  

And after telling her several stories, I told her the common denominator of what caused those parents to bury their sons young.  It was so obvious to me and other people when you looked at every example!  

 

The Old Days, Jail or the Military 

I’ve even spoken to older men about their past lives.  Back in the day (80’s, 70’s, 60’s,50’s, etc.) if you were getting into skirmishes with the law, the judge would eventually give you an ultimatum.  They give you the choice of jail or the military.  In the past 20 years, I met many men that were in this predicament when they were younger.  They (or their father) chose the military for them.  And you know what?  Every single one of them said it changed their lives for the better.  

Today, I know men that have lost their sons to violence and I know men that have saved their sons, by going to the extreme.  The common denominator with the ones that lost their sons, was that they were not raising them.  Most had been divorced.  So they were co-parenting.  They got the child on the weekends.  During this period of time, usually, the son was out of control at his mother’s house.  And the father never knew what he was getting into at his mother’s house.  Usually, when the son was with him, he was on his best behavior.  By the time he realized what was going on, the son was laying in a morgue or had a warrant out for his arrest!  This is something I saw over and over and over again.

Many women only gave the son to the father when he was too far gone.  She didn’t want to give him the son at 12 years of age.  And sometimes, he didn’t want to be a father and train up his son once he reached the age of 12.  Usually, he was either chasing his career or chasing women.

 

Military School

But one thing I learned from many parents was that if the child was so far gone, before they lost their child, they were willing to pay thousands to send them to military school!

There is a military academy in Virginia that several people I know of sent their child to.  Hell, even the owner of the Chinese restaurant in my area sent her son there.  Her words were as follows:

 

“Mr. Muhammad, I was losing my son.  I knew that if we didn’t do something, we were going to lose him.  One of our customers told us about this military academy in Virginia.  It costs around five figures a year to send him there.  But you know what?  It’s worth every penny!  We got our son back.  And now he’s so disciplined!  He lives on campus and we see him on weekends, but we saved our son. We got our son back!!”

 

In the last couple of decades, I met so many people who did the same thing.  And they saved their sons.  That tends to be a plan C for parents.  Plan D tends to be to sign them up to the military at age 17.  To the best of my knowledge, you can still do this.  

 

Tongue and Cheek

But I digress.  I spoke to my coworker about many things about raising boys.  She fought me on some things. But she eventually conceded too many of my points.  

She later revealed to me that her son was nothing like his father.  Apparently, the father was a piece of shit when it came to his children.  He only had one son, and he was not a good example of a man to his son.  Hell, he was barely there after the divorce.  

She was later in a relationship with a guy for years, and her son patterned himself after him.  She tells me all the time that her son and I are very much alike in our opinions. Even down to our ideas concerning health. But this time, she said something concerning both of us.  It was a little sarcastic.  Tongue and cheek, she said:

“It’s funny how the both of you have so many ideas on raising sons but neither of you has any children.”

The conversation was moving so fast that I heard it, but I didn’t process it until after we changed subjects.  I wanted to bring it back up, but the conversation had shifted so far into another realm that I couldn’t circle back to address it!  It would have been tacky.

As I was processing this tongue and cheek comment that she made towards me and her son days later, I began to realize that she tends to say “slight” comments about people all of the time.  I never paid attention to it but on this day I realized that this was her personality.  I processed the conversation and then disregarded it.

 

Couldn’t Leave It Alone

But a couple of days later, my mind kept drifting back to that conversation and I really began to think about it.  I was irritated at the slight.  But also, I began to ask myself the question. Am I qualified to talk and enlighten others about raising sons even though I have no children?…. Yet!  Some would say no.  Most people would say that,

 “ I’ll never take advice from a person that doesn’t have children.  They have not earned the right to talk to me about children!  Come back and talk to me once you’ve raised children!”

 

Can He Talk About This Too?

There are many people that would also say, if you haven’t been married, you can’t speak on it.  Are they right?  In my opinion, they are probably right.  Others would say, if you haven’t had a successful marriage you can’t speak on it.  You can’t?  I disagree. I believe you can. Why do I believe this? I can say this because I’ve personally been through it for ten years.  I failed and I learned from it.  But I also did a lot of things right.  

Not only have I learned from my failed marriage, as a young married man, but I was also given certain guidelines to live by as a husband. I also was given certain guidelines to make my wife live by, so that our marriage wouldn’t fail. I know for certain that these things helped our marriage survive as long as it did!

As the years went on, I literally saw older men who I worked around ignorantly break those rules (that I learned) in their relationships and saw their marriages fall apart. They weren’t blessed to have that guidance that I received.  If I didn’t understand the purpose of some of those rules, as time went on, I saw the breaking of those rules in other people’s relationships destroy their marriage.  And that’s how I got a deeper understanding of those rules.   I was also corrected by other men from time to time when I committed an error as a husband. 

And since that failed marriage, I’ve studied hundreds of hours on marriage and relationships.  Not only that, the icing on the cake is that I’ve dedicated thousands of hours and dollars on the study of manhood!  

I’m so experienced, that I’ve literally stopped older and younger men from making errors that will put them in divorce court very soon!  

I have plenty more to study and learn but you get my point.  I have something to say about relationships.

 

But I Digress…

But I digress.  Let me get back to my point.   Can I talk about the rearing of sons, even though I don’t have any?  I’d say yes.  I can talk and teach about it. Why?  Because I was a son.  And not only was I a son, but I was also a fatherless son.  

Before I go any further, let me show you this Quote from Mr.  Jason Wilson.      

This picture continues to touch me every time that I see it.  I can talk about this subject because I was a fatherless son.  And as Mr. Wilson, this predicament made me determined to be what I never had…a father…a present father.  And it made me desire to be a great father.    

 

Differences

Sidenote.  I’ve never met my coworker’s son.  But she says that we have common ideas about life.  Well, based on his circumstances, it sounds like he became determined to be what he also never received!  A good father.  I am not surprised at all!

We may have a major commonality, but we also have some major differences.  Some of those differences are as follows: 

  1. There is at least a 10-year difference between us.
  2. He was raised up north, I was raised in the south.
  3. He later got the opportunity to have a male in his life (her fiance) to pattern himself after for the majority of his formative years.  I had my uncle in my life for a short period of time.  Not long enough to pattern myself after.
  4. I came from a Caribbean culture, he grew up in American culture.  
  5. He wasn’t abused.  I was abused.  Physically and mentally abused.  Not sexually.
  6. He was a fatherless son.  I wasn’t just a fatherless son, I was a parentless son.  I will explain later.

 

The Vacuum

It is said that nature abhors vacuums.  What do I mean by this?  I mean that when there is a vacuum in nature, nature will strive to fill that hole.  

In my recent book, Secrets of Manhood #6: A Man Doesn’t Begin to Live Until He’s Found His Purpose. I stated that the painful circumstances that you were born (or raised in ), are not something to be forgotten.  Trust me, I know that many of the circumstances that many of us experienced were so painful that all many of us want to do is bury it in the back of our minds and move on with our lives.  But trust me when I say this, those things will never go away, no matter how deep you bury them. They will manifest themselves when you don’t expect them. They will eat at you until you confront them.  What’s the other reason why you should confront your “demons”?  The answer to this is that many times, those events are permitted in your life to prepare you for what you were born to do.  

Many times, those circumstances produce the vacuum that you will obsessively spend the rest of your life to fill. And when I say “to fill”, I mean to solve. And when I say solve, I mean solve in the lives of others.  Once you solve the problem in yourself, you will now go about solving this problem in the lives of others.   And you will not rest until this burning mission is fulfilled. 

To be continued…