I Believe in Fatherhood

I believe in fatherhood. Most of my adolescent life I would use having an absent father as an excuse for my poor decisions. By the time I was reached the age of fifteen I failed to put forth any effort what so ever into school or any other activities that would help me become a responsible, hard working adult. I fear that this is an issue affecting todays youth in a way that is immeasurable.

Growing up I didn’t have decent role model. At the time I’m not even sure I knew what one was. When I was born I was the fourth child of six, my mother, Victoria, chose to have me even after she had received immense pressure from all her family members not to. They also promised if she had another child that she was on her own and could no longer depend on her family for help. My biological father was an alcoholic, and an abusive husband and father, as was his father before him. This is why my mother’s family felt that it was in my mother’s best interest for her to consider other options. When she finally had me in the hospital not one of her eight brothers and sisters came to see her, nor did her parents. Shortly after that my father left and I was never to see him again.

By the time I had started high school I was hanging with the wrong crowds, and had no idea how important an education was. At times I did think about college and I always told myself at the beginning of a semester or a school year, I would get my act together so that I could go to college. It was now the year I was scheduled to graduate high school and only had enough credits to sit in a sophomore “home room.” I was on track to be the fourth of four children, not to graduate. The years had gone by and now I realized that I was going to be the guy that was twenty years old and still trying to graduate high school. Reality set in and it began to eat me inside. When I realized my failure things got worse than they ever were before, for a student that averaged a trip to the discipline office a week this wasn’t good. I just stopped going to class altogether and by the time winter break had arrived the school had had enough; I was expelled. As I sat in the discipline room waiting for my mother to pick up her newly expelled son, it didn’t yet occur to me how much I was becoming more and more like the person I was blaming for my difficulties in life. I had become what I swore would be the motivation I needed to be different. On the ride home I was expecting my mother to scorn me like never before, but she didn’t. We began to drive home and instead of the yelling I expected to hear it was silent she didn’t say a word. When she finally started to speak she began to tell me how she felt like a failure because of my actions. At that moment I felt like I had become the man she and I feared. I was letting the decisions other people made decide my fate, and I had been expecting myself to fail because of other’s failure. This is when she told me the story about how nobody supported her when she decided to keep her pregnancy, and she also told me I was doing what everyone expected. Suddenly I had something to prove, and prove it I would. I was determined to let my mother know that she made the right decision; four days later I was sworn in to serve in the military only to find out that I couldn’t go to boot camp until I had a high school diploma. My world was crushed at the fact that I had just told my mom I was going to be a Marine, but I had to graduate first. Shortly after I had signed up for the Marines the very man who expelled me had given me a call to find out if what he heard was true. He told me about an alternative school program at the local community college, but he also said it was very hard to get enrolled because of the intense interview process. I was accepted to the program and this was my final chance to graduate; and the school had me on a one strike and you’re out basis. I couldn’t put a sentence together very well when I finished, but I ended up doing two years worth of high school work in only a few months. The following June I walked on graduation day with my class from my original high school. Three months later I was in boot camp, and five years after that I enrolled in college, I chose to be a first instead of a repetition. I chose to do better.

I came to a point my life where I started to refuse to let other peoples mistakes be my misfortunes. The fact that I hadn’t had a father figure would be the thing to propel me into success. Today I feel grateful for this experience because I know how great of a father I will be from it; I can already see this in one of my brothers. But not all fatherless children are so lucky to take what I have from my experiences. There are too many children without a male role model. Today I have a profound sense of empathy for the children in our world without an adult male they can look up to, and a building resentment towards the men responsible. I look forward to the task of being a father, and I am trying to prepare financially, emotionally, and mentally. I may not be ready when the time comes, but I will be there.