As Father's Day has come and gone, I now have time to reflect on the importance, or lack of importance, of the role of the father in the lives of young men today. The conclusion that I came to is that the role is vitally important. I want to throw a question out there: If you had to choose which parental role was more important to the successful upbringing of a child, is it the mother or the father? Now, before you answer that question, I do ask that you pause for a minute, take a deep breath, and put aside all emotion. Once you have done that, I then ask that you give me an honest answer. If I had to guess, for a variety of reasons, the majority of you would say the mothers are more important. I’ll come back to that later.
I thought back to when my nephew was playing little league football and I coached him for 3 seasons. (Disclaimer: this was before I had children). I can remember many single mothers dropping their boys off to "Coach Lump" for practice each day and for our games on Saturdays. These mothers would put 100% trust in me and the other coaches for the safety, direction, correction, discipline, and development of their kids. I can remember as the seasons would go on, they would come up to me and thank me for giving their sons a "male role model" to pattern their lives after. They would talk about how well their sons were doing in school, how their attitudes had changed around the house toward doing their chores, and most importantly, that they had started to see the value in education. Coach Lump did all he could for those few hours each week to teach "life lessons" to these young men. He didn't spend a whole lot of time teaching the game of football. That was the easy part. The hard part was teaching boys how to be men!
As I got to know the kids and their parents, or shall I say, their mothers, the more they would confide in me. Eventually, I would start to ask the hard questions. Why haven’t I seen the dad here at practice or at the games? I heard everything from he was locked up to he simply wasn’t around--which we know can mean anything. I walked away every time thinking to myself, "Why do you trust me to teach life lessons to your sons and will hold me accountable, but won't trust his father and hold him accountable?” Because these young men were that important to me, I did the best I could for them. But it saddens me to know that, by the numbers, the coach has more authority to teach and discipline a woman's son, than his own father. However, I do have hope that 2010 is the year that fathers begin to take their rightful place in the lives in our young men.
Brothers, I know that single fatherhood is challenging. I know “baby mama drama” can push you over the edge at times. But the bottom line is this, it is not about you, it is not about the mother, it is about the children. We coaches cannot do the job of raising your sons. That is your job as a father. Our job as a coach is to supplement your training and build on the foundation you have set for them. I am an equal opportunity writer, so sisters; please stop lying to these boys telling them you are mommy and daddy too.
To answer the question from earlier…neither parent is more important than the other. The roles are different, but equally important. A child has the DNA of both parents and it takes both parents to develop these kids into well rounded adults. As a father of two, Coach Lump knows that it starts at home. Coach Lump can do what he can. However, more fathers are needed than coaches in order to make the biggest impact in the lives of our kids, especially our sons!
No comments:
Post a Comment