Fatherhood

I spent a large part of my childhood tethered to a Nintendo. The only thing more depressing than the hours I wasted playing NES is eclipsed only by the hours I wasted, years later, with online role-playing games. Don’t get me wrong: I love video games. But marriage and fatherhood have drastically changed my priorities, and I can no longer justify the cost and time to play. It’s been so long, I no longer have even the urge.

So I’m mystified and terrified by the release of the PS3. The price alone makes me shudder: $600 for the console, and $60 per game. The father within me can’t fathom the waste. All I can see is health insurance, life insurance, mortgage, car payment, tuition, car insurance, natural gas bill…food. I’m certainly not willing to pay upwards of $600 to stand in line for several hours, risking theft, a punch in the face, or bullet in my chest, all for the chance to kill more realistic elves in surround sound.

What does this phenomenon teach our kids about perspective, instant gratification, and priorities? And it’s not as though this behavior is rare. Similar goings-on occurred last year, when IKEA launched a new store in London. Heck, I saw this two years ago on Black Friday, when Staples was selling folding tables for $5. Tables!

For now, Ian and I are happy playing Super Mario World and Tetris. And eating.

My son’s eating habits have become more and more concerning to me. He just doesn’t. Eat. It takes him a half-hour to eat a PB&J. He just doesn’t seem to enjoy eating. It’s a task, even with food I know he likes.

I don’t know why I worry. He’s very obviously not suffering from a lack of energy, though I wish we’d give him a better balance of healthier food. For some reason, I just can’t stop from thinking that he should be eating…more.

I’ve always known that a kid’s stomach is as big as his fist. But this chart from the National Fatherhood Initiative really makes an impact: one serving of meat for a preschooler is equivalent to two matchbooks. I’m only supposed to be eating an iPod.

Now that the portions have been clarified for me, I just need to focus on working more golf balls into his diet.

Making the rounds this month is Britain’s Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists’ proposal that the medical community take more seriously the option of euthanasia for seriously ill and disabled newborns:

‘A very disabled child can mean a disabled family. If life-shortening and deliberate interventions to kill infants were available, they might have an impact on obstetric decision-making, even preventing some late term abortions, as some parents would be more confident about continuing a pregnancy and taking a risk on outcome.’

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The Times Online

Wesley J. Smith warns that ‘infanticide…has become a respectable notion‘, and that those concerned with preserving the lives of children need to start paying closer attention to the issue. We can no longer assume that newborn euthanasia is beyond the pale.

One of my greatest frustrations with the ‘pro-choice’ and euthanasia movements has been their reluctance to be honest with themselves. Their rhetoric is filled with vague notions of rights, personal freedom, and quality of life. In the end, it all comes down to killing.

Ironically, now that such an organization has finally made clear its intentions in such unambiguous terms, I find myself less than comforted. It’s not the language sending chills down my spine. It’s the knowledge that a large group of people gathered to craft this proposal, writing draft after draft, and, in the end, decided that ‘killing infants’ was a good idea. Good enough to use the term in its formal proposal.

Be careful what you ask for.

Unless you’ve been hiding from him, you’re certainly aware of the man, the myth, and the legend that is Chuck Norris. Did you know that, apart from an all-consuming force of nature, Chuck Norris is also a loving and committed father?

‘If newborn children can be viewed as diamonds in the rough, parents are truly God’s diamond cutters. There are few professions more demanding than that of the diamond cutter. His hands have the skill of bringing out the latent fire and life of a nondescript stone. It is only after a raw diamond is cleaved, cut and then polished that it is transformed into a gem of awesome beauty. However, if the diamond cutter is careless, he can destroy the inherent beauty of the stone.’

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New Man Magazine

If you send me a forward, 99 times out of 100 it’ll wind up in the trash, never having been opened. That’s just the way I roll. Today, my grandmother sent this newspaper clipping:

The caption reads:

Air Force Chief Master Sgt. John Gebhardt, of the 332nd Expiditionary Medical Group at Balad, Iraq, cradles a young girl as they both sleep in the hospital. The girl’s entire family was executed by insurgents; the killers shot her in the head as well. The girl received treatment at the U.S. military hospital in Balad, but cries and moans often. According to nurses at the facility, Gebhardt is the only one who can calm down the girl, so he has spent the last several nights holding her while they both sleep in a chair. [Photo courtesy of David W. Gilmore Jr. / U.S. Air Force]

It’s a picture of fatherhood: comfort and protection. It nearly brought me to tears, thinking of this girl’s pain and isolation, and of Gebhardt’s compassion. This is what it means to be a father.

I did a bit of snooping, and finally found the accompanying article in the Air Force Print News. The photo was taken last month, and Gebhardt is now home with his family:

‘”I got as much enjoyment out of it as the baby did,” he said. “I reflected on my own family and life and thought about how lucky I have been.”

…While deployed to Iraq, the chief tried to help out any way he could. He figured holding a baby that needed comforting that would free up one more set of arms that could be providing care to more critical patients.

“If I have an opportunity to help out, I look for that opportunity,” he said. “They had more than enough to do.”‘

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Air Force Link

Yet CNN gives headline coverage to a California couple having sex in a plane.

Does anyone speak Polish? Tato.Net is a website and magazine dedicated to the promotion of fatherhood in Poland, and internationally. They offer training and conferences, and research the ‘condition of fatherhood’.

Their magazine is published twice a year. Which does me no good. Because I don’t speak Polish.

Tato.Net is also hosting the 3rd International Conference for Fathers, in Lvov, Poland the last weekend in November.

First Australia, now Poland. Am I missing something, or has the United States simply not reached the critical mass needed for a national fatherhood gathering thingy?

Nate Watson was 16 when he became a father. He decided not to take the easy—and usual—way out:

‘Watson felt too young to be a father. But he saw plenty of young men around his neighborhood and in school who had children but didn’t care for them. Being that sort of “deadbeat dad�?—a term that spews from Watson’s mouth with disdain—was the last thing he wanted to be.

…“It was like I’d won the lottery,�? Watson, now 18, said of his first days as a father. “You just can’t stop smiling. It was a responsibility I needed to take care of. I had to make sure, over everything there is, I have to be there for my daughter.�?

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Quad-City Times

As encouraging as this story is, it’s also a shame that fathers have done so poorly that we’re praising men for doing what they’re supposed to. Of course, a sixteen-year-old young man out-manning someone ten years older is certainly something to celebrate.

Former fatherhood news aggregator DadDaily has re-launched as a new social networking site. Features include photo and video sharing, blogs, classifieds, chat, and a lot more. It’s similar to MothersClick, only for, you know, dads.

The site is still in development, and registration is by invitation only. If you’d like to join, please let me know!

Students of the W.C. Reid Center for the Creative Arts, in Asheville, North Carolina, have written and will perform in a play called Daddy, Where Are You. The play focuses on how kids—especially boys—handle life with absent fathers:

‘”We have anywhere from 125 to 230 kids come through the Reid Center every week,” [W. LaVone] Griffin [director of the Center] said. “I noticed that when it was time to pick the kids up or go on field trips, it was always the women who picked them up. We have families and men around, but it is predominately single-parent mothers.”

As Griffin grew closer to the children, he found that many of the fathers were out of the picture. “They would tell me, ‘Oh, he’s gone,’ or ‘He’s in jail’ or ‘He doesn’t care about me anyway.’” Griffin wanted to give the children a chance to tell their stories, so he and director Michael Hayes came up with “Daddy, Where Are You?” a play written by children who have lost their fathers through death, divorce or incarceration.

“The majority of the kids in the play are missing a father for one reason or another,” Hayes said. “We took stories from each of the cast members and ideas from the children at the center to come up with the play.”‘

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Asheville Citizen Times

Full disclosure: my wife and mother-in-law are both drama teachers. So I’m biased. Drama has a way of drawing students into the open, and encouraging them to share themselves in a way that, in any other situation, would never happen. For some reason, it’s safe(r) to let your walls down. From what I’ve seen, it’s very therapeutic.

What better way for these kids to deal with their pain and frustration than to share it with others?

Daddy, Where Are You? will be showing this weekend at the W.C. Reid Center for the Creative Arts (828-350-2048).

Another sacrifice to the Gods of Disproportion, the South County Raptors of Northern Virginia will be unable to play in their football league’s first round of playoffs. The son of the league’s commissioner was moved from defense to offense, and the coach was subsequently fired.

‘”Scott does not sit out on defense—ever,” the commissioner, Dan Hinkle, had warned the head coach, James Owens, in an e-mail sent before the season began about how he should play Hinkle’s son, 12. On defense, the father said, “he goes in and stays in. That includes all practices, scrimmages and games. This entire league exists so he can play defense on the best team in his weight class….He is my son, I own the league, and he plays every snap on defense.”‘

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The Washington Post

Hinkle has offered to hire a different coach, but the 12- to 14-year-old boys refuse to play under anyone but Owens. You go, kids. At least you understand something about loyalty and fair play.

Thankfully, the son’s classmates don’t seem to think any less of him for his father’s actions. Forget, for the moment, that a lot of boys’ hard work and hopes have been swept aside in an instant of vengeance. What strain is this going to put on the relationship between Hinkle and his son?

For a man to have done this to his son, there may not have been much of one to begin with.

(Thanks, Jason!)

One of the more difficult challenges facing new fathers is the strong sense of isolation during the pregnancy and a child’s first year. It’s easy to feel as though you’re intruding, or inconsequential. Neither is true, but men don’t often have the community of support and encouragement that women tend to enjoy.

Men don’t talk much, but we’re learning.

In the meantime, Lisa has offered a few tips for the father who’s feeling a little lost. These are good suggestions, but I’ve added a few twists of my own:

1. You can bring the baby to your wife for feedings, allowing her to rest in bed.
2. Help change diapers.
3. Hold the baby and comfort her when she is fussy.
4. Take a turn bath[e]ing the baby.
5. Encourage and support your wife as she learns how to breastfeed.
6. Have your wife pump so that you can take over a few of the feedings.
7. If mom needs quiet time for a nap, take the baby out for a little walk.

Are you seeing a trend? As I said, it’s good advice; but it doesn’t go far enough. These tips assume that a father’s role is primarily supportive, which is initially true, and a good place to start; especially if you’re feeling left out. But a father is part of a whole, and goes beyond helpful.

The best advice I can offer a new father is to become involved. Begin by looking for ways to help, with the goal of becoming an active and intentional part of your child’s life.

The second-best advice I can offer a new father is that babies are soft and bendy. Don’t worry: you won’t break them.

Britney Spears has filed for divorce from former back-up dancer Kevin Federline after two years of marriage. This beats her previous nuptial record of fifty-five hours. In the wake of these farcical vows are two children, of whom Federline wants custody.

Federline met Spears while he was dating a woman who was pregnant with his second child. She gave birth months before he and Spears were ‘married’.

Is it too much to ask for pop stars to be sterilized?

In Maryland, Baltimore County’s Family Employment and Support Program provides job training and employment services for parents owing child support:

‘Participants join voluntarily, sometimes at the recommendation of defense lawyers, as well as through court referrals or mediation.

Many participants have criminal records, officials said. For that reason, some employers prefer not to be identified. Many other participants are disabled.

The program links applicants with services to help overcome problems that can get in the way of finding and keeping a job. Such problems might include a criminal record, addictions, a lack of affordable housing, transportation and child-care, or elder responsibilities, as well as legal and work-adjustment issues.’

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Northeast Booster

So far, the program has enrolled 285 participants and collected over $220,000 in past-due child support.

There’s no self-help book to tell you if you’re ready to be a father. No length of heart-to-hearts with your brother or uncle or father or friend. But there is, inevitably, an online quiz:

Strangely enough, the decision really is this simple. There’s never a good time to have a child—though some are better than others. This quiz could’ve been developed by eHarmony.com and you still wouldn’t get an accurate sense of whether or not you should be a father.

A man is never ready to be a father. There’s simply no level of preparation or foresight which gives even the smallest inkling of what it takes to be a father. The same is true for marriage and cliff-diving. You simply have to do it.

It’s nearly become cliché for blogging fathers to complain about the popular image of fatherhood. I think we do it so often because we don’t understand why everyone else isn’t also tired of the joke. We feel abused and under appreciated. But this article from New Man has reminded me that this is nothing new:

‘In fact, the God of the Bible stands alone in His embrace of the institution of responsible fatherhood. If you think the portrayal of fathers on television is bad, you need to read the mythologies of ancient cultures and their treatment of “father-gods.”

Everyone from the Egyptians to the Mesopotamians, the Greeks to the Romans, told tales of carousing, irresponsible and violent father-gods who were outsmarted by their wives and children, and who did little else other than wreak havoc on the heavens and the earth.’

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The Invisible Man

Ah, how could we forget Zeus? He puts every bumbling Home Depot dad to shame. The Great Santini is Dr. Huxtable by comparison. Why should I be so concerned about the fatherhood of popular culture? If it hasn’t changed in over 2000 years, it ain’t gonna change. How does Zeus or Ross or Ray Barone affect me as a father?

On the other hand, God hasn’t changed, either. And the Holy Bible is the best-selling book. Talk about popular culture! The fatherhood of God is a perfect model, one which I can admire and follow, without fear of being led astray.