Did anyone read the forum section of the CJ today? This crazy woman praised men for making the sacrifice and choice against their “nature” to be fathers. She actually commended them for doing what they should do: take care of their children. Is she serious? She claims that fathers have been marginalized and it’s such a sad, pitiful shame. Honey, fathers made themselves irrelevant. Fathers made themselves disposable. Fathers made themselves unimportant in the lives of children. Young men don’t want to marry and be faithful to one woman. Fathers constantly, I mean constantly, complain about the amount of child support they have to pay. My friend’s babydaddy quit his job and took a considerably less paying job so he wouldn’t have to pay her as much. Her. Not his children. Her. Like she was walking around in furs, diamonds, carrying a Prada bag, and jumping in her Maybach. We won’t even talk about the men that just don’t flat out pay. The
By the way, my daddy is the best father in the world. Happy Father’s Day, daddy! He did (does) his duty as a father and expects nothing in return. In that he gets EVERYTHING in return: love, admiration, respect, and blessings.
Have I mentioned this girl to you guys yet: Leela James. Love her hair (and her voice).
6 comments:
I understand your comments and in many ways I agree or did. However, I’ve tapered my views a little.
What is supposed to be and what actually is are two different things. We all know that it’s easier to do the wrong thing than the right thing, especially in this day and age. The men getting the props now are the drug dealers, the balers and so called pimps and players. You as a woman complain about this understandably, however, we must also acknowledge that women are complicit in these actions. Men wouldn’t do half of these things if the women in their lives didn’t accept it.
I’m sure you’re familiar with the concept of positive reinforcement. You have to praise these men for doing what they are supposed to do. That’s an example of positive reinforcement. You have to chastise them when they don’t. When you do your work right or well, do your superiors compliment you or at least say, “Well done?” If we take your argument to its extreme, then you shouldn’t get a well done, because that’s what you are supposed to do.
We have to encourage our young men in their positive actions. It’s harder to do the right thing for some people. Do you know how many negative influences there are waiting to encourage brothers to do the wrong thing? Do you know how hard it is to self sacrifice? Do you know how brothers get teased by their associates for doing the right thing? It’s difficult to do the right thing and suffer when you see people doing the wrong thing and thriving. That’s what’s going on in our community today. That why you have to encourage brothers for doing what they are supposed to do because, they are bucking the trend and going against the norm. When you buck the trend and go against the norm, what does that make you? It makes you exceptional. Doesn’t exceptional behavior deserve praise?
Women kill me how they think because they hear a story or two about a dead beat dad, that all men are the same. You have NO idea what it's like being a father who loves their child more than anything in this world and has to deal with the baby's mother and the Court System. For starters, the court system has ABSOLUTELY NO RESPECT for fathers. When my ex and I split up I was paying her money every week along with buying everything my daughter needed to live. I was taking care of them, myself, and going to school. Then I get handed papers from a police officer at MY WORK in front of all my co-workers to make an appearance in court over child support. I was working part-time and going to school full time. The judge granted us joint custody and her an ungodly amount of money for child support, basically more than what I was making a year. There was no way I could have done that. The only thing said was "FIND A WAY." So I did. I found myself a 6-figure job, quit school, and continued to make a living.. UNTIL ... I get more papers to go back to court, and for what, yes..MORE MONEY. And don't worry ladies, she got more. She took every I had away from me. I was left no money, no place to live, and LESS time with my daughter. And you think men don't deserve a pat on the back. I now make $30k a year, still pay child support (a lot less now), and BTW..still drama from the baby's mother. Will you woman ever give up, allow a father to be a father to his child, and quit trying to take the ones who want to be in their childs life away from them.
Ok... we have to PRAISE men when they do the right thing because they are "bucking" the trend??!! Please... where are the praises for women who remain virtuous until marriage, who remain child-free until they either have a well-adjusted marriage or are fully capable to raise the child on their own? No where! Women are still persecuted for choosing abortion, or for that matter for choosing either birth control or chastity!! In this society, and in most cases, it is the mother who shoulders the responsibility for not only giving life but for raising that life no matter what happens with the "baby daddy drama". It should NOT be considered out of the norm for the father of a child to actually stick around and raise that child (on all physical, emotional and financial levels). It IS however considered out of the norm today because men have let it BECOME the norm. Bragging and priding themselves on how many children they can have with as many women as possible... all without consequences. And, true, these women who allow this to happen to them... they only allow the cycle to continue because their children will only see and repeat what they have been told is acceptable behavior. However, blaming the woman in these situations is such a cop out again for these men to say it is not their fault that they can not step up to the plate and face responsibility for their actions.
It takes two to tangle. I’m different from most men, beside the fact that I’m gay. I consider myself a womanist. I tend to side with my sisters. If you don’t know what that is ask one of your pan-African ex-panther friends! Short explanation is that womanism is the African-American response to feminism. Feminism was about get white women their equal rights on par with men. Womanism is about getting all people their equal right on par with white men.
Back to the discussion. Men, let’s be real for a minute. We have done what we were supposed to do. There has always been a remnant of us who have done right, but a larger portion of our ranks haven’t. It’s unfortunate that the men who do right have to pay for those who do wrong but that just the nature or our human condition.
The sad reality is women as the bears of civilization usually are saddle with the responsibility of rearing children. Men, here is the thing you don’t understand. We are under the premise that child support is for the child, it is not. I recall my mother having the conversation with me. I asked my dad for something and he said, “Tell your mother to buy it, I pay child support.” He did pay and he paid significant as I was an only child and he had a well paying job with LG&E plus he and my mother was married(Ladies and Gentlemen it makes a difference). I think I wanted a Nintendo. My mother told me, “The support isn’t for you directly. This is what your father pays me to take of you. Anything else is extra. This is the regular money he’d be contributing were he to live with us. Christmas, Birthday or other things aren’t included in that.” Now before the men jump in up in arms and such. My mother wasn’t some woman staying at home not working etc... I went to E.L. Minnis, the only black private school in Kentucky at the time sponsored by my church Magazine Street SDA Temple. We had a nice home in Shively. My mother worked everyday and took a second job to by me and my sister’s Christmas and such. Men don’t understand that you are actually compensating the women for caring for your offspring. When you have a child, you are limited in your activities. You can’t just wake up and say I want to do this or that, the needs of the child come first. You can’t get any job you want, because you have to see about child care and hours. When that child gets sick you have to call off work. You can’t go on all sorts of dates because again you have to worry about the child. You can’t go out to eat at casual restaurant because the child has to eat too. You may find yourself cooking more and more often than before. That’s why the judges tend to side with the mothers because while you are paying child support, you still basically have your freedom. We as men understand that the dating market is geared towards us. A man with children is still more marketable than a woman with children.
Now to stand with my brothers. Women while the child support isn’t directly for the child, it is not for you to go shopping and get your nails done. It is not so you can get another non-working man to sleep up in the house your ex is helping you finance. I’ve seen or heard about women that get the check go shopping immediately for frivolous things think name brand clothes nails, hair and such. In the less bad situation the child might get some of this too. In the worse situations the man may pick up his child wearing old tattered clothes while the mother is standing with brand new clothes, nails, shoes, jewelry and hair. Then the mother tells the child lies about their father not being any good. She poisons the child’s mind so that he/she doesn’t even want to be with the father. Who could blame the child. You leave your mother’s laid out place and then go to the father’s less desirable place. He’s paying so much support he can barely afford to take the child to Mc. Donald’s. Meanwhile the baby’s mama has several other men paying support so her place is literally laid out.
Message to my brothers, if you don’t want to go through this, you need to be more careful with the women you lay down with, specifically with out a condom! Same goes for the women. You have almost no right to complain about the mother or father of your child when you knowingly CHOSE that person. Brothers if you don’t want to pay support then either get full or partial custody of your child it’s possible because I’ve seen it done. I knew a brother and his baby’s mama wanted more and threatened to take him to court. He was a competent, established man with his own money and own place. He said I’ll take her part of the year and you the other. In that period of time you can pay me support. The mother didn’t want to do that. Once again, he was an established man with no drama and could’ve easily won the case. The mother decided she was being paid enough after all. Brother I feel you that you had issues with going back to school. I’m sorry the judge didn’t take that into consideration. I don’t know all the details but usually provided you are contributing something the judge WILL take that into consideration. However, your situation isn’t anymore different than that of women who messes up and has to go to school, go to work and then come home cook, clean help the child with school work, make doctor’s appointments, teacher meetings, miss your stories (comical).
Some of you people are funny. I want to see you on Judge Brown or Divorce Court…it’s comical the way you behave. It seems that all there is, is love till it’s time to be an adult and take care of business. It’s funny how a woman become a b@#$ or a hoe after she has a baby and wants support but 9month prior she was the love of your life. It’s funny how a man is so good to you and you act as if you can’t live with out him still you decide to trip out after getting preganant.
Face it, as a society we are becoming more and more morally corrupt. There are very few people who act with the intent of accepting responsibility for the consequences of those actions. Sadly, it is the children of these individuals who suffer the most. My father left our family when I was 10. I had an older brother and 2 younger sisters and a mother who stayed at home at my father's request (ironically he worked for the church). When my father finally came around again I was 16 years old. He offered to pay what he could for child support until we were 18 years old, and the very day we turned 18 years old his money for that child stopped. There was good and bad in this... no court dates or threats to get child support paid. And my father did pay on time and never grumbled... however it always puzzled me how he thought his monetary contributions fairly ended once we reached 18. If my mother thought that way I would never have had the opportunity to complete college and so forth. It's up to the parents of these children to reach a verdict where the child wins.
Lisha
I am the product of a "broken home". I could not tell you how many overgrown boys I know with more children than they will ever be able to afford. It's a shame that I have to atate it as a matter of finance but, in their case, it is. Some of them are from backgrounds like mine, some are not. The difference between myself and them is the fact that I am a man, and they are bitches.
Some of the same boys that I knew as a child are re-enacting their father's roles as fathers. The same ones that used to sit around with me saying "fuck him" with any mention of their estranged "daddy". We all hated our fathers. It was that simple...at age 10. I, personally, despised mine for a myriad of reasons that I will refrain from exploring at present.The point is: those were my feelings as a child. I make mention of them because I know that if you do not acknowledge your feelings about a given thing, you will never understand it and it will influence and /or control you(my mama taught me that).
My mother explained to me that if I continued to hate him, that I would not progress beyond my (then, current)view of the matter. Simply put: I could either learn from it, or continue to look at it through the eyes of a child. If you see the subject of your father's abandonment of you like a boy,as opposed to a man, you cut off several levels of understanding. When you remove the elements of understanding, how could you ever manage to see the entire truth? How could you ever move beyond it? You will not.
"Those who do not study(read:understand) history, are doomed to repeat it."
That quote is relavent in more ways than one. you may apply it as accurately to our current government's approach to world relations as you could to this particular epidemic. If I could change things just by waving my hands, I would make everyone see the undeniable NEED for a few "new" approaches to things. We all should observe the long-standing advice from God knows where of:"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you", 'Mind your business and let others mind theirs.". These (including my statement from above)are not all that is needed, obviously.It will take much, much more to achieve anything of merit in any form. (to be cont'd at a later date )
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