Messy

I have a lot of respect for the single mother. Raising a child on your own can be miserable. At least that's way I view it. My parents separated before I was born. I didn't even meet my father until I was 6. Even then it was just a visit and I would talk to him again until I was 18. My mom wanted it that way. He respected her wishes and stayed away. So for the first eight years of my life, my mother raised me. Kind of. She struggled to keep a job and we lived in 21 different places in an eight year span. However, we did live close to family, so I was the one kid who was raised by the family. Grandparents, cousins, friends all chipped in. When I was in 2nd grade, my mom's cousin bought my mom a car and a trailer. A year after that, it was apparent that my mom was either not fit or just too immature to raise a child, so they asked if they could adopt me. My mother agreed. From that point on, my life changed. I now had a family, with a father, not cousins and grandparents that acted like fathers.

I was very fortunate to get that missing piece back in my life. I was also very fortunate to have a couple raising me that truly love each other. Even more than they loved me. As boy, I remember it blowing my mind when my dad said he loved my mother more than me. Wait. That's not how this supposed to work. Parents are supposed to love their children more than anything else. He even ranked them: God, Mom, then us kids. I didn't completely understand him at the time, but it still made a lasting impression on me and a way I live my life. That one statement has helped me be a better husband and father.

What really got me thinking about this theme of fatherhood and this body of work about fatherhood originally came from my own views of what a father should be. Like many things in life, when it is always there, you never know what you are missing. Just like a child needs their mother, a child NEEDS their father. This blog will not only serve the purpose of my research but also a collection of thoughts about what fatherhood should be. In the same way my walk with God as a son is often messy, so is my journey as a son to my parents and as a father to my own kids.