By Kenneth Braswell
A couple of weeks ago I found myself hearing the ghost of fatherhood past as my son had a mental meltdown because he and I were getting demolished by my wife and daughter in arcade games. Now, don’t get it twisted, I was having a meltdown too, however somewhere in my life I’ve learned to harness it. This was not the case for KJ as for almost 30 minutes he couldn’t stop crying as I screeched, “boy stop all that crying; you better pull yourself together.”
Since then I’ve been wondering whether he was more upset that he loss, I was part and responsible for his losing or we were getting beat by two girls. This episode of weeping was even more exasperated by my wife holding his hand to console him. Oh Hell Nah…Ya’ll beat our asses in air hockey and motorcycle racing and then to add insult to injury, hold our hand. This is Black Girl Rockin; I get it.
This started out as a blog, but it’s beginning to feel more like therapy…Sorry, I digress.
Anywho, I wondered today what sage advice my father would have given me if he was around. I also thought about all the other times fathers find themselves in situations with their children, not having all the words to communicate what they were feeling or wanted to convey. Could I have quite possibly inherited what to say through some undiscovered viral man gene? Or do we just fall back to some universal and primate language that we use when we want to command our children without explanation. Not sure.
I do know enough to know that life has a way of teaching fathers something that books do not have the ability to accomplish. A unique way of seeing the big picture and converting it into a few words or even a grunt. A somewhat simple way to pass on wisdom, yet hold on to our masculinity in the process.
It reminds me of a familiar line used in the first of episode of The Cosby Show by Dr. Huxtable; “I brought you in the world, I’ll take you out.” While literally one might cringe at the notion of what this insinuates; yet all parents understand the need to express love for our children with measures of authority, whether that comes through a masculine or feminine lenses. BTW…my mother used that phase with us on several occasions and it made its point loud and clear.
Sometimes people can say things that create wonderful and memorable moments in our lives. This Fathers Day we hope to both recognize and celebrate the many aspects of fatherhood. The best moments of fathers may not come from what he does, but what he says.
After surveying some our facebook followers; they shared a few others. Enjoy and please share other sayings of what your #daddysaid to #makeamoment with you!
- Slow down
- Do As I Say, Not As I Do
- Don’t Make Me Come Over There
- I Don’t Know, Ask Your Mother
- Are You Deaf?
- When I Was Your Age?
- You Think I’m Talking For My Health!
- I’m the King of This Castle
- When You Pay Some Bills, You’ll Have Some Say
- This is gonna hurt me more than its gonna hurt you.
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