Father Variations- Manage Yours

 

There are may variations of a “father” that one can have. There is no black or white, or good or bad. There just is, what is.

A person can have an absent father. A person can have a present father. A person can have a present father who is an abusive father. A person can have an absent father who is incarcerated or who passed away … and so on.

Regardless, you have to remember that you are person independent of your father. You are not a product of your father, or the result of your father’s parenting. You are simply “you”. No matter what variation of a father you had, you have to become a person independent of how that relationship went or what that variation was or is. You have to put it behind you and “de-factor” it from who you will be.

Some of us had a good variation of a father, some bad, some in the middle, some in the middle leaning to good, some in the middle leaning to bad. Whatever it was or is, it has to be decoupled from who you become.

We are not daughters or sons, first. We are “us” … “ourselves”, first. We are the victims of someone else’s mistakes or shortcomings- last … if at all. Someone had the chance to be a success or failure, as a man, and as a father. He had his choice to be a winner or a loser, to be good or be bad. Now you have yours. Your burden is not to live-out your father’s mistakes. That was his burden. You don’t have a burden- other than to avoid making your own.

Whatever kind of father you had- or didn’t have- you had the variation that you had- and you have to manage it, if it was not good, by putting it in the rear view mirror where it belongs. Your job is to be “you”. So do it right.

We are not daughters or sons, first. We are “us” … “ourselves” … first.

 

 

 

Learn more about The Fatherhood Assignment here: http://www.neil-siskind-the-fatherhood-assignment.org/