I have been doing a lot of reading lately; newspapers, periodicals, books. I think it’s a phase that I am going through, not unlike someone who decides that it’s time they rented all the classic black-and-white movies they have heard about but never seen or someone who makes a conscious effort to set aside time to get to know their neighbours.
Every once in a while, I read about a topic that touches me a little more deeply because I have seen it, lived it, and breathed it or I have been witness to someone else’s experiences during their own journey.
I discovered a passage in the book Whistling in the Dark by Frederick Buechner, a Presbyterian minister and an American author, that I found myself thinking about long after I read it. It touched me not only because I am a single mother but also because I have a couple of very close friends with whom I have discussed this issue at length.
“When a child is born,” the passage begins, “a father is born. A mother is born, too of course, but at least for her it’s a gradual process. Body and soul, she has nine months to get used to what’s happening. She becomes what’s happening. But for even the best-prepared father, it happens all at once. … Even if he should decide to abandon it forever ten minutes later, the memory will nag him to the grave. He has seen the creation of the world. It has his mark on it. He has its mark on him. Both marks are, for better or for worse, indelible.”
It is common knowledge that men and women are wired differently: we think differently, act differently, love differently. I remember the moment I became a mother and I think of myself most often in terms of being a mother. I have often wondered if it is the same for men.
Many of the men I spoke to when I decided to write about fatherhood talked about being present at the birth of their children, of holding their son or daughter in their arms and about feeling an instant connection and bond.
“I remember thinking This is my child,” said one gentleman. “I remember looking down at him and realizing what a tremendous responsibility I had just undertaken… that it wasn’t all up to my wife….that I was forever tied to the little human being I was holding.”
Another talked about how becoming a father changed him profoundly from the inside-out. “It wasn’t just about me anymore,” he elaborated.
What is the measure of a man? Is it found in how he provides for his family? Is it about he is perceived by his co-workers and friends? What about the time he gives to the community? It is about all of that, piece by piece, and so much more.
Governor of New York from 1983 to 1994, Mario Cuomo, spoke eloquently about what it meant to him in an interview many years ago. “I watched a small man with thick calluses on both hands work fifteen and sixteen hours a day,” he said of his father. “I saw him once literally bleed from the bottoms of his feet, a man who came here uneducated, alone, unable to speak the language, who taught me all I needed to know about faith and hard work by the simple eloquence of his example.” “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy,” said famed American Baptist Minister and Civil-Rights Leader, Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968). Strong men, strong images, strong words. I truly believe that in the grand scheme of things, mired in the personal pain and anger that comes with separation and divorce, and even with the best of intentions, many men and fathers simply don’t pause to think about the significance that they play in the lives of their children, even if they aren’t or can’t be with them on a daily basis. It has always been puzzling to me how some fathers step up to the plate, put their children first and work through the obstacles they face in order to remain a consistent presence in the lives of their children while others simply walk away from their kids or are an inconsistent presence at best.
The moment you become a parent, you are called upon to fulfill an obligation a life-long relationship of unconditional love and support that is essential for a child to thrive and develop. Your nurturing is the foundation for the sense of security and self-esteem that directly affects your child’s ability to achieve success as they walk their own path. Yes, people change, relationships change, divorce can happen. Regardless of the tension that exists between the girls’ father and me, I am thankful that he takes the time to maintain contact and recognizes how important his presence is to them as they grow into young women. I have friends who aren’t so lucky and face the daily struggle of trying to provide answers to some very difficult questions they get from their children.
The measure of a man is not found in the size of his bank account or the number of people he calls ‘friend’. It is not displayed in the clothes he wears and it isn’t hiding in the terms of his will or a life insurance policy. The true measure of a man is in how he explores the nature of his own sacrifices and commitments, integrity and humility, rage and forgiveness and how he fulfills the unspoken promises of fatherhood to his children.In inches and miles, through baby steps and leaps of faith, that’s the measure of a man…
Kimberlee Taplay is a single mother who believes that father isn’t just a noun: it’s a verb.
An eloquent article about men and fatherhood. The father of your children is fortunate that you still harbour such positive feelings, even though you are no longer a married couple.
I believe that every time there is a divorce where children are involved, fathers and mothers are automatically sacrificing fatherhood and motherhood; as you know, ideal parenting can only occur in a loving married relationship between a man and a woman.
Hi there skyhawk… and thanks for the positive words about the article.
I’m afraid I have to disagree with your comment about how ideal parenting can only occur in a loving married relationship between a man and a woman. While it is true on some levels — the loving relationship part, to be exact — there are many wonderful parents out there who don’t fit into that very narrow definition of ideal parenting (is their such a thing anyway?).
For those parents who make the painful (and I don’t care about how ‘amicable’ or nasty the divorce is, it is always a painful experience) decision to divorce, their committment to their children, at whatever level it was during the marriage, doesn’t change when they become a single parent. I say ‘during the marriage’ because I know of too many mothers and fathers (sorry guys, but it is statistically proven that of the ones that ’simply walk away’, the fathers outnumber the women nearly 5 to 1) who really weren’t all that present for the children or in the marriage long before the divorce occured. Many times, the breakdown of the marriage occured because of one of the spouses’ lack of time, attention or active participation in the lives of either the former spouse or to the children. In those cases, the children are far better off emotionally with the inattentive and uninvolved parent out of the picture.
And then there are those who for other reasons — death of a spouse, never been married but both committed to the children and have a great support system in place, common law relationships, same sex couples — are not in a state of a ‘loving married relationship between a man and a woman’ but who are no less successful at ‘ideal parenting’.
When it comes to ‘ideal parenting’, it is the character of the parent, their moral integrity, their committment to their family (whatever form it takes) and their love for their children that make them a great parent.
I didn’t sign on to be a single parent but it is where my life has taken me and I take on whatever challenge comes my way because of my love for my children. I am not in a loving married relationship but I can assure you that all three of us are in a far better state of mind emotionally and are blossoming in ways that were simply not possible if I had remained in my marriage. And, believe it or not, the girls’ relationship with their father is better now than it was when we were all living under the same roof.
Sometimes, the sacrifices made by staying in a marriage ‘for the sake of the children’ are sacrifices that end up costing the children emotionally when all is said and done. In staying, I would have sacrificed myself to a life of being invisible and my children would have continued to withdraw into themselves. In leaving, we found ourselves and each other. ‘Father’ and ‘mother’ aren’t nouns, my friend. And fatherhood and motherhood aren’t sacrificed when it comes to divorce; the marriage ends, plain and simple. Who we are and our relationship with our children is an entirely separate issue.
I appreciate and respect your strong convictions about marriage/divorce/parenting as a single mom/love etc. Call me “old fashioned”, but I am convienced that no matter how much parental love children get after a divorce, they will always feel that something went wrong and is possibly missing.
On the other hand, I am also a realist and know that the perfect picket fence world which parents are dreaming about is becoming increasingly difficult to achieve in today’s modern society;hence the close to 50% divorce rate.
I wonder if you have any thoughts on the effects of a break up (divorce) on the children of same sex couples; I speculate that it could be many times more complex then the broken marriage relationship between a man and a woman. Perhaps that’s one reason why such relationships should not be promoted.
Well… I suppose that I only have this to say: It doesn’t matter if a child has one mother and one father, two mothers, two fathers, one father/one mother/one stepmother, or any other combination of parents in their life; a child’s life (as they know it) changes when the people they love as parents go through a separation or divorce, and there will always be hurt, anger, confusion, fear and questions. A child doesn’t make that connection to or attach adult moral, cultural or societal judgement to their pain…. he or she is a child.
And yes, of course, a child will ‘feel that something went wrong and is possibly missing’; so do the men and women who make the difficult and often heart-wrenching decision to make such a profound change to their life. I have been witness to both sides of the debate and I am just as confident in my belief that a child who grows up in a household with two parents who aren’t affectionate, are not friends, who don’t communicate well with each other or who have anger and disagreements that they ‘hide’ (note: it’s never hidden — the kids know) from the children, are far more emotionally stressed and less confident, more anxious and suffer more problems in the end.
As for the ‘promotion’ of same sex couples? Love is love and matters of the heart are between the people involved and no one else. All people should be equal in the eyes of the law; only fear, ignorance or intolerance would be reason to say otherwise.